Mad / Sad / Glad
Mad first or you wasted the meeting. Glad-first is hosting; Mad-first is working.
Three columns — Mad, Sad, Glad — for what frustrated, disappointed, and pleased the team. Lead with Mad. The Mad column is the artefact you came for; Sad and Glad exist to give people somewhere else to land. Run it anonymously or you'll get nothing useful, especially with a junior team.
When to use
After a difficult sprint, a missed launch, or any cycle where the team is carrying frustration that hasn't been said out loud. Skip it on a healthy weekly cadence — SSC is faster and the emotional framing is overkill. Skip it without anonymity if there's any seniority gap in the room.
How it runs
Set up anonymously
Three columns. Cards must be anonymous — use a tool that supports it, or paper sticky notes collected face-down. If you can't get anonymity, run a different format.
Silent write, eight minutes
Everyone writes their own cards before any are surfaced. The senior person writes too, and writes last. No talking, no clarifying questions — clarification kills the Mad column.
Read Mad first
Read the Mad column out loud, every card, before touching Sad or Glad. The temptation is to start with Glad to soften the room. Don't — Mad is why you're here, and the order signals that.
Cluster, then dig into the top two
Group duplicates. Pick the two Mad cards with the most overlap and spend twenty minutes on what's behind them. Sad and Glad get five minutes each at the end.
Convert one Mad into a commitment
One Mad cluster becomes a concrete change for next sprint, with a name and a deadline. Not three. One.
Why it works
Most retro formats ask 'what should we do' before 'what's actually wrong.' Mad/Sad/Glad inverts that — it asks people to name a feeling first, which gets past the polite framing teams default to. The columns are emotional ranges, not action categories: Mad is acute, Sad is grief or resignation, Glad is genuine. Three different signals, all useful, only the first one urgent.
Variations
- Glad first — the politer order. Use it with a brand-new team that doesn't trust each other yet, or for a leadership offsite. It produces a calmer retro and a thinner Mad column. That's the trade.
- Add a fourth column, Mad-at-the-System vs Mad-at-Ourselves. Useful when the team's frustrations are mostly external — splits venting from agency.
- Run it pre-sprint as Hopes/Fears phrased as Mad/Sad/Glad in future tense. Different exercise; same emotional vocabulary.
Facilitator notes
The senior person's silence is the format's load-bearing piece. If a tech lead writes a Glad card during the silent phase, the rest of the team's Mad cards quietly disappear. Run it anonymously and have the most senior person speak last in every column. If a Mad card names a person, take it offline — the retro is for systems.
Pitfalls
- Running it without anonymity. The juniors won't write Mad cards, and the meeting becomes a polite Glad column.
- Reading Glad first because the room feels tense. The tense room is the room that needs Mad first.
- Spending twenty minutes on Glad. Five minutes maximum — Glad is the warm-down, not the meeting.
- Trying to action three Mad clusters. You'll do none. Pick one.
Remote tips
Use a tool with first-class anonymous cards (not 'add your name later') and pre-open the board 24 hours before the call. Anonymous async cards are the only way you'll get honest Mad columns from a junior team on a video call where everyone can see who's typing.
Example outputs
- Mad: the design review queue still adds three days to every ticket and we've raised it three retros running.
- Mad: release night moved twice this sprint with no warning.
- Sad: the auth migration deadline slipping again — we knew it would, we said it would, nothing changed.
- Glad: the on-call rota change. Pages dropped from 12 to 4 last month and the change worked.
FAQ
- Should I lead with Mad or Glad?
- Mad. Glad-first is the politer order — it manages the room and produces a calmer retro with a thinner Mad column. That's exactly the meeting you don't want. Lead with Mad; use Glad as the warm-down.
- Mad/Sad/Glad or Rose/Bud/Thorn?
- Same shape, different register. Mad/Sad/Glad for software teams that can handle a sharp prompt. Rose/Bud/Thorn for design teams, marketing, education, and mixed-discipline rooms where 'Mad' would land wrong.
- Mad/Sad/Glad or 4Ls?
- Mad/Sad/Glad surfaces emotion; 4Ls (Liked/Learned/Lacked/Longed For) surfaces what was missing. Run Mad/Sad/Glad after a difficult sprint when frustration is the signal. Run 4Ls at end of project when the right output is lessons, not next-sprint commitments.