I did a fun retrospective last time. One of my hobbies is playing Pen & Paper Games (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabletop_role-playing_game), and I tried to combine this with a retrospective. I have divided the retro into the following sections:

1. Find a Hero Group

Time: 15 min - 20 min

Everyone gets a very small character sheet where they can create a hero that should represent themselves in a fantasy medieval setting and must have:

• A name (e.g., Sir Thomet)
• A race (e.g., Dwarf)
• A class (e.g., Knight)
• A level (e.g., 66/100; I said, find your own scale which can be different for each member)
• 3 Main Attributes: Body, Agility, and Mind; the sum of all 3 attributes must be 100% (e.g., Body: 25%, Agility: 40%, Mind: 35%)
• A weapon (e.g., Warhammer)
• An armor if your character has one (e.g., plate armor)
• One or more magic spells (e.g., Reparus - Can repair everything)
• A slogan (e.g., Mess with the best, die like the rest)

After creation, everyone briefly tells about their hero. (This is more of a fun section and helps to train self-image and dive into the fantasy retrospective. Also, it’s more likely people will speak during the meeting if they have spoken before already.)

2. The Journey

Time: 45 min

In this section, we looked back on our sprint journey. The quest (sprint backlog) we started with and the way to the goal (the sprint goal). That means having a look at all the tickets we worked on. The hero group told me what each ticket represents in the journey. For example, a ticket where the way was clear but hard was a representation of a mountain within our journey. There are also other tickets that are lakes where you need to build a bridge, forests where you can get lost, a side quest (e.g., not sprint goal-related ticket), or sometimes just a normal way (easy task) or a small village where you can have a rest (and many more).

With that, we got a journey map and we talked about all our tickets from the sprint and how they affected us. (It’s best to use a tool to visualize the map.)

3. Monsters, Traps, and Treasures

Time: 5 min to write down, 10 min to present

Now the heroes find out Monsters (e.g., big things to deal with), Traps (e.g., wrong decisions), and Treasures (e.g., learning a lot about something). They write them on cards and present them after some time to everyone.

4. Tell the Bard

Time: 30 min

After each journey, the heroes go to a tavern to celebrate the adventure. And there will always be a Bard who will listen and tell about hero stories. Now the heroes must tell the Bard the three most important things (vote) in their journey. That can be something like: what went very well, something they will do differently next time.

They will talk about the three topics separately and decide if they will do it the same way next time or if not, how they will handle it next time (write down TODOs if needed).

5. Feedback

Time: 10 min

Everyone can tell 1-2 sentences about the retrospective.

Closing

This retrospective was a lot of fun, promotes creativity, and is a very good variety. The participants had some initial difficulties, but after building the heroes, they got it. I received very good feedback and the result was also very good. I recommend anyone to be creative with their retrospectives.