What Went Well / What Didn't
Two columns is too few. If you want a retrospective, use Start/Stop/Continue. If you want a journal, use this.
Two columns: what went well, what didn't. The default-of-defaults — taught in every introductory agile course, run by every team that doesn't want to think about format. That's its main use case, and that's the warning. There's no action column. Cards turn into cards and nothing changes.
When to use
You almost certainly want to run something else. Use SSC for any team that ships software — it has the same shape plus an action column. Use this format for one-off events where you don't need to act on the output: workshops, training sessions, conference debriefs. Skip it as a sprint retro; you'll generate cards and do nothing with them.
How it runs
Two columns
What Went Well, What Didn't. That's the format. The simplicity is the appeal and the limit.
Silent write, five minutes
Standard silent write. Senior person writes last. The format's so familiar that the team won't engage hard with the prompts unless you protect the silence.
Read out, cluster
Group duplicates. Read each column out loud. The discussion will land at 'we should do something about X' — at which point you've discovered that the format is missing a third column.
Decide where to put the action
Either commit to action items in a separate ad-hoc list, or admit the meeting is just reflection. Don't pretend two columns is a full retro — it's the format's structural limit, not your team's failure.
Why it works
It works for what it's actually good at — quick reflection on a one-off event where action isn't the point. The two-column structure is fast, familiar, and produces a readable artefact. As a sprint retro it underperforms because retrospectives need an action column to be retrospectives; as a workshop debrief it's fine because workshops don't need next-sprint commitments. The format is misnamed by the industry, not broken.
Variations
- Add a third column — What To Do About It. That's Start/Stop/Continue with the columns relabelled. Use SSC.
- Run it as the closing exercise of a workshop. Two columns is enough when the goal is a takeaway, not a commitment.
- Pair it with a separate Plus/Delta at the end of the meeting. Plus/Delta about the meeting itself, What Went Well/Didn't about the work.
Facilitator notes
If the team is running this every sprint and looking blank-faced about why nothing changes, the format is the answer. Switch to SSC. The two-column format produces cards but not commitments — that's not a coaching problem, it's a structural one.
Pitfalls
- Running it as your default sprint format. Cards will pile up; nothing will change. SSC has the same shape with an action column.
- Pretending it's a full retrospective. It's a journal. Calling it a retro doesn't add a column.
- Letting the discussion stretch to fill the time you blocked. If it's empty in fifteen minutes, end the meeting.
- Treating the cards as commitments. Without a What-To-Do column, they're observations.
Remote tips
Two-column boards are easy remotely — no zoom problems, no quadrant confusion. The format's structural limit is the same online as in person; the remote pattern doesn't fix it.
Example outputs
- Went Well: shipped the auth migration on schedule.
- Went Well: support tickets down 30% week-over-week.
- Didn't: standup ran long every day. Nobody named it; nobody fixed it.
- Didn't: design review queue blocked three tickets. (Note: this is the third sprint we've written this card.)
FAQ
- What Went Well or Start/Stop/Continue?
- SSC every time, for any team that ships software. SSC has the same shape with an action column — the column that makes a retrospective worth running. What Went Well/Didn't is two columns and no action. Run it for one-off events where reflection is the goal; run SSC for sprint cadence.
- Isn't this the most popular retro format?
- Yes. That's not an argument for it; that's an argument that teams pick formats by inertia. Popularity comes from being the example used in every intro-to-agile course, not from outperforming SSC, 4Ls, or Sailboat. The popularity is the warning.
- When does it actually fit?
- Workshops, training sessions, conference debriefs, one-off events where you don't need to act on the output. Anywhere reflection is the goal and there's no next sprint to feed back into. As a sprint retro it's almost always wrong.