Templates · Essentials

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Separates the problems the team can fix from those it had to endure, and gives the second kind a place.

What it is

Three columns. The good and the bad are the usual review. The ugly, as this template defines it, is something else: things the team could not change but should be able to call out, such as a decision taken elsewhere, a dependency or a constraint.

Goal

Problems sorted by who can act on them: fixes the team owns, and a list of outside constraints, said openly, to escalate or to accept.

When to use it

• When the team works under constraints it does not control: imposed deadlines, other teams, a supplier.
• After a sprint in which things happened to the team more than the team did things.
• When retrospectives go in circles on subjects nobody in the room can change: the third column acknowledges them without letting them take the whole session.

When to pick another format

If the team controls most of its problems, the third column stays empty: take Went well, To improve, Action ideas. If the ugly things are risks ahead, not facts already endured, WRAP or the RAID Log are built for them.

How to run it

Before the writing, explain the difference between the second and the third column with one test: could we have changed it?

1. The good: ask what went well or worked well.
2. The bad: ask what did not go as planned and which problems surfaced. These are things the team could have done differently.
3. The ugly: ask what the team could not change and still wants to call out.

Group, vote and discuss The bad as usual, and agree on actions with an owner and a date. Do not try to solve The ugly. For each card ask two questions: who outside the team should hear this, and who will tell them? And what can we do on our side to suffer less from it? Some cards end with no action other than having been said, and the format accepts that.

Columns

To start a retrospective from this template, see Create a retro.