Retro Actions

The true value of a Retrospective is not the discussion itself but the changes that follow. This guide explains how to capture Actions from a retro and ensure they are followed through.

Why Retro Actions Matter

Without clear Actions, retro discussions remain just conversations. The issues identified keep recurring because nothing changes. Capturing specific, assignable Actions turns insights into improvements.

Teams that consistently follow through on retro Actions see measurable improvements in their processes over time. Teams that do not follow through often find the same notes appearing in retro after retro, which leads to disengagement with the retrospective process itself.

Creating Actions During Discuss

In the Discuss sub-status, anyone in the room can add an Action against the note currently being discussed. The Action form takes a title and an optional assignee picked from the team's members. The Action appears immediately for every participant.

• Participants can suggest Actions during the live discussion
• The facilitator can edit or remove any Action
• Every Action records the note it came out of, so the context is preserved

Action Reactions

Each Action has two reactions available during Discuss: agree and disagree. Every participant can cast one reaction per Action; casting a new one replaces their previous reaction. Hovering over the count shows who reacted. See Action Reactions for more.

AI Action Suggestions

While discussing a note, the facilitator can click Suggest with AI to have AI propose an Action that addresses the note. The suggestion shows in a preview with Keep and Discard buttons - Keep adds it as a normal retro Action, Discard throws it away. AI Action suggestions are a Pro feature. See AI Action Suggestions.

Creating Actions After the Session

The Completed tab on the manage retro page lets the facilitator add more Actions after the live session, with the same fields plus an assignee free-text field if the assignee is not a team member.

Writing Actionable Outcomes

Good retro Actions are specific and achievable. Compare:

• Vague: "Improve communication"

• Actionable: "Set up a shared channel for deployment notifications by next Friday"

• Vague: "Do better code reviews"

• Actionable: "Create a code review checklist and share it with the team by end of sprint"

Each Action should be something a person can actually do within a reasonable timeframe.

Tracking Follow-Through

Retro Actions appear alongside all your other Actions in the Actions section. You can filter by source to see Actions that came from Retrospectives.

Before your next retrospective, review the Actions from the previous one. This serves two purposes: it holds the team accountable for follow-through, and it shows that the retro process leads to real change.

Auto-Linking to Key Themes

When you mark a retro as Completed, any AI theme tags assigned to its notes are auto-linked to matching Key Themes. This means a recurring topic such as "Code Reviews" surfaces in your Key Themes view alongside the retro it came from, making it easier to spot patterns across multiple retros and other discussions.