Starfish

⏱ 3 min  ·  📅 2026

The starfish is a retrospective technique that gives the team five categories of analysis to reflect on its way of working and propose specific improvements. It can be used in the second or third phase of the retrospective. Its name comes from the graphic shape of the board, divided into five arms.

The five categories

1. Start doing: practices, habits, or tools the team should adopt.
2. Stop doing: things the team is doing that clearly add no value or cause problems.
3. Do less: activities that have some value but are being done to excess or too frequently.
4. Keep doing: practices that are working well and that the team wants to consciously maintain.
5. Do more: activities that add value and that the team should strengthen.

How to run the activity

1. The facilitator encourages participants to write ideas on sticky notes (one idea per note) for each category.
2. The notes are placed on the board under the corresponding category.
3. Each note is read aloud, similar ones are grouped together, and they are discussed.
4. The team votes on the highest-priority actions.
5. At least one specific action to be carried out in the next sprint is agreed upon.

For large groups (more than 7–9 people) or in retrospectives that analyze long periods, it is recommended to split into subgroups, each focused on a different area: requirements, testing, client management, etc.

When to use it

• When the team needs to explore both what is going well and what needs to change in a single session.
• As an alternative to more polarized techniques (good/bad) when the facilitator wants to foster a more nuanced conversation.
• In end-of-project or product launch retrospectives, where there is a lot to review.

Common mistake

Not closing with a specific action. The starfish generates many ideas spread across five categories, which can create the illusion that "many topics have been covered" without any real improvement having been committed to. If the session ends with the board full of notes but without a specific action agreement for the next sprint, the activity will have been a diagnosis without consequences.

Materials

📊 Estrella de mar [Starfish, in Spanish]Scrum Manager · Free access

🔧 Diseñar una retrospectiva [Designing a retrospective, in Spanish]Template · Scrum Manager

Resources

📄 Segunda fase de una retrospectiva: en busca de la mejora continua [Second Phase of a Retrospective: In Search of Continuous Improvement, in Spanish]Scrum Manager Blog · Aug 2023

📄 Ejemplo: cómo diseñar una sprint retrospective [Example: How to Design a Sprint Retrospective, in Spanish]Scrum Manager Blog · Oct 2022

References

• Derby, Esther; Larsen, Diana. (2006). Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. Pragmatic Bookshelf.

See also

Retrospective Mad Sad Glad The Boat Plus/Delta Brainstorming/Filtering Timeline Working agreements

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