TeamRetro

What do you like best?

TeamRetro is one of my best examples of good software!

- It is easy to learn and easy to use. Even the least IT-savvy participants can handle the tool very well right from the beginning due to its intuitive and smooth interface. Also, the sign-on (if required) is a simple one-two clicks procedure.

- As a result, the "tool" does not dominate the conversation and does what it supposed to do: TeamRetro supports our participants in focusing on their ideas, thoughts, improvement actions.

- The well-defined flow structure (brainstorming, grouping, voting, etc.) might be originally seen as a limiting factor. Practically, however, it covers most of the discussion needs, especially taking into consideration multiple configuration parameters available to the moderator in each phase. One can also jump back and forth, so the structure is in fact quite flexible. You can get a very good impression of the tool by trying the "bot" demo on their site.

- Health Checks (surveys) supplement the Retrospectives (boards) and help to collect quantitative feedback from the teams. For example, it helped us to implement the regular Happiness Index (originally done with Excel) and also to enrich the formats of retrospectives.

- The TeamRetro team is very supportive and eager to help, be it a technical or organizational request. I am quite amazed by the frequent deployment of new "tasty" features that constantly enhance the functionality of the tool. The user voice forum is a great place to provide feedback and help co-improving TeamRetro.

What do you dislike?

Not really a "dislike" but rather a wish to extend the toolbox with further types of phases. For example, a whiteboard-like canvas where cards or columns can be custom arranged (e.g., in quadrants); or the phase where the cards are rotated among participants (e.g., brainwriting).

It would also be nice to highlight/filter the cards based on criteria like the author or color etc.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

See their bot demo for the first impression. Try it for free and make your own impression. Try to compare it with alternatives. After that, you might clearly decide for TeamRetro as we did.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

We successfully use TeamRetro to organize Sprint Retrospectives for distributed teams. We also often use the functionality to organize ad-hoc workshops with smaller and larger groups that require brainstorming and prioritization of ideas. The tool fits very well because it requires minimum learning effort and delivers the expected result. I have never heard negative feedback about this tool and rather see a constantly growing interest from the individuals and departments who encounter and try the tool in our organization.