ESVP

When to use

Top of any retro you suspect the team isn't fully bought into. New cadence, post-incident review, the first retro after a manager change — anywhere the room's mood will shape what's possible. Skip it for a healthy weekly cadence; running ESVP every sprint trains the team to vote Explorer regardless and the signal goes flat.

How it runs

1. Explain the four labels

   Explorer: curious, ready to dig in. Shopper: scanning for one useful idea. Vacationer: glad to be out of real work. Prisoner: here because told to. Read them flat — don't editorialise about which one is 'right.'

2. Anonymous vote

   Each person picks one. Use a poll, a private chat, sticky notes face-down — anything that hides the votes from each other. If the vote isn't anonymous, you'll get four Explorers. That's not a reading.

3. Reveal the histogram, not the names

   Show the count by category. Don't reveal who voted what — the safety of the anonymity is the only reason the data exists.

4. Decide what to do with it

   This is the step the canonical version skips. Three Prisoners and a Vacationer? The retro you planned is the wrong meeting — pivot the agenda, shorten the call, or ask the room directly what's going on. ESVP is a barometer; act on the reading.

Why it works

The four labels do most of the work. 'How are you feeling about this retro?' produces 'fine.' Forcing a choice between Explorer and Prisoner produces an honest answer because the words give people permission to say something they wouldn't otherwise. The histogram then gives the facilitator a decision input ten minutes before the meeting would have surfaced the same problem the hard way.

Variations

• Three-label version: drop Shopper. Useful for shorter check-ins where the four-label distinction is too fine.
• Weather check-in: same shape (sunny, cloudy, stormy, foggy) — softer for teams that find ESVP too jargony.
• Five-point energy scale: 1-5 vote on energy level. Less diagnostic but works for short stand-ups.

Facilitator notes

Vote yourself, last. Show the histogram before you start the agenda. If three of eight are Prisoners, name it directly: 'Half this room doesn't want to be here. Tell me what would make this useful, or we'll cut the meeting to twenty minutes.' That conversation is the actual retro on a Prisoner-heavy day.

Pitfalls

• Voting publicly. You'll get all Explorers. The anonymity is the format.
• Showing the histogram and moving on. The act of looking at it is half the point — pause for ten seconds.
• Taking a Prisoner-heavy result personally. It's data, not a verdict. Treat it like one.
• Running it weekly until people vote Explorer reflexively. Use it when you suspect the answer matters.

Remote tips

Anonymous Slack poll, Miro hidden voting, or a private DM to the facilitator — all work. A quick poll bot is faster than a sticky-note board. The reveal is the histogram alone; do not show individual votes even by accident.

Example outputs

• Histogram on a healthy team: 5 Explorers, 2 Shoppers, 0 Vacationers, 0 Prisoners. Run the retro you planned.
• Histogram after an incident: 1 Explorer, 1 Shopper, 3 Vacationers, 3 Prisoners. The team is exhausted; pivot to a 20-minute check-in or reschedule.
• Histogram on a flat team: 8 Explorers. That's not a real reading; you skipped the anonymity.

FAQ

ESVP or Plus/Delta?

ESVP is a check-in — top of the meeting, asks 'are we ready for this?' Plus/Delta is a check-out — end of the meeting, asks 'how did it go?' Different jobs, different positions in the agenda.

Should I share the histogram with the team?

Yes — that's most of the value. The facilitator-only version is a comfort blanket; the team-visible histogram is what gives the meeting a chance to recalibrate.

What if the team always votes Explorer?

Either you have a unicorn team, or the vote isn't actually anonymous. Check the second possibility first.

Related activities

Recommended use cases