Prioritize with dots

⏱ 2 min  ·  📅 2026

Prioritize with dots is a retrospective technique for quickly identifying a group's collective priorities when faced with a list of options. Each participant has a limited number of dots or stickers to distribute among the options they consider most important. It is carried out in the third or fourth phase of the retrospective. It lasts 5 to 20 minutes depending on the size of the team.

Description and objectives

It is used to gauge how the group prioritizes lists of possible changes and proposals. It is especially useful when the team has generated many ideas in earlier phases (for example, with Brainstorming/Filtering or Triple nickels) and needs to narrow them down to a manageable set before planning actions.

Each participant prioritizes ideas by allocating their dots freely: they can concentrate all of them on a single option if they consider it very important, or spread them across several. The options with the most dots at the end are the group's priorities.

How to run the activity

1. The ideas or proposals to be prioritized are written on cards or sticky notes visible to everyone.
2. Each participant is given a number of dots or stickers, usually 3 to 5 per person.
3. All participants place their dots on the options they consider priorities at the same time, so that no one is influenced by how others vote.
4. The dots on each option are counted.
5. The options with the most dots move on to the action planning phase.

Other versions

• Weighted voting: each participant has dots of different values (1, 2, 3) that they can distribute freely.
• Silent version: each participant votes silently on paper and the votes are tallied at the end, to avoid the social conformity effect that arises when someone votes first.

In remote teams

In a remote format, it can be applied using digital whiteboards (Miro, FigJam), where each person drags their "dots" onto the options, or using voting tools built into videoconferencing platforms.

Common mistake

Voting before everyone has read all the options. The value of the technique lies in everyone voting with the same information. If voting begins before the whole team has read and understood all the options, the first votes influence the ones that follow, and the result reflects the position of whoever was fastest, not the group's true collective priority.

Resources

🔧 Designing a retrospectiveTemplate · Scrum Manager

References

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

See also

Retrospective Brainstorming/Filtering Triple nickels Working agreements Starfish Force field analysis

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