Fast & Furious

⏱ 2 min  ·  📅 2026

Fast & Furious is a retrospective technique that uses the metaphor of a car race to identify, in a visual and playful way, what has propelled the team during the sprint (boosts) and what has acted as an obstacle (brakes). It is typically used in the second phase of the retrospective. It lasts between 15 and 25 minutes.

Objective

To identify what enabled a fast pace of progress and what slowed it down or led to failure during the sprint, using the visual competition between two cars as a mechanism for motivation and synthesis.

How to Run the Activity

1. Draw two parallel horizontal lines representing a road, with two cars of different colors between them and a finish line ahead. For example: orange and blue.
2. Hand out sticky notes in two colors: orange = orange car (obstacles), blue = blue car (supports).
3. Each person writes their ideas about the obstacles and supports from the previous sprint on the sticky notes.
4. The sticky notes are placed behind each car. The car that collects the most sticky notes wins the race.
5. Discuss the results: what do the most frequently repeated obstacles reveal? Which supports should we keep?

Variants

• A fun zone can be added to highlight teammates or events that have been especially helpful during the sprint.
• The pit stop is used to create actions that "repair" the identified obstacles, adding an improvement planning dimension.

Common mistake

Stopping at the tally without discussion. The car race is the mechanism for gathering information, not the purpose of the activity. If the team stops at "this car won" without exploring why the most-voted obstacles keep recurring and what can be done about them, the activity produces data but no learning.

Materials

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

📄 Ejemplo de la actividad Fast & Furious [Example of the Fast & Furious activity, in Spanish]Google Docs · Downloadable template

Resources

📄 Segunda fase de una retrospectiva: en busca de la mejora continua [Second phase of a retrospective: in pursuit of continuous improvement] (in Spanish)Scrum Manager Blog · Aug 2023

References

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

See also

Retrospective Starfish The Boat Mad Sad Glad Plus/Delta Working Agreements

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