Retrospective Methods for Projects

■ Features & significance

In today’s projects aiming at DX or transformation, things rarely go exactly as assumed at the outset, so it becomes essential to make course corrections in response to the situation as the project proceeds.

The retrospective is an indispensable tool for such course correction. By holding retrospectives partway through a project, you can improve the state of the project and the team. And by holding a retrospective when a project is complete, you can leave behind insights (knowledge) that can be put to use in the next project or in future projects.

Such efforts are essential to running today’s complex projects accurately. A retrospective is not merely a “post-mortem on the past,” but can be called “a creative space for making the present and the future better.”

This guide introduces the thinking and practical methods for carrying out such “retrospectives” effectively.

Even the latest edition of PMBOK (8th edition, 2025), the international standard body of knowledge for project management, points out the importance of holding retrospectives to drive project improvement and to draw out lessons learned. The retrospective is a very important element in making a project better.

By carrying out the retrospectives introduced in this guide, you can expect the following effects.

• When problems arise while advancing the project, or when members are carrying unresolved unease, you can dispel it

• You can preserve the insights and lessons experienced in the project for the next project and for future projects

   

■ How to use

Retrospectives are basically carried out in the following two situations.

• During the project

  • Held when the project faces a difficult situation or the team’s condition worsens as the project proceeds, leading to course correction

  • Held regularly in step with routine meetings, to detect issues and “unease” early

• After the project ends

  • Held when the project has ended, in order to pass on what was experienced and the lessons and knowledge from the project

Basic flow of a retrospective

The flow of a retrospective differs by method (YWT, KPT, etc.), but when done as group work, the following flow is basically common to any method.

1. [Individual work] Fill in each item of the retrospective method (format) (e.g., for KPT: Keep, Problem, Try) (about 3–5 minutes)

2. [Sharing] Each person shares what they wrote within the group (about 1 minute each)

3. [Dialogue] Among the participants who shared, deepen mutual understanding of each other’s entries by giving feedback such as impressions and questions (about 10 minutes)

4. [Turning into action] Discuss and clarify the next actions (improvement activities, capturing knowledge, etc.) (about 10 minutes)

Facilitator

A retrospective needs a facilitator. You can facilitate a retrospective without special skills, but it is effective to have a member with the interpersonal coordination to create a space where participants can speak up with ease. Rotating the role within the team also makes it a chance to build facilitation experience. In some cases, having an outside third party act as facilitator makes it easier for franker opinions to come out.

Types of retrospective

There are several retrospective methods, each differing in where it is used and its purpose (Figure 1).

• YWT

  • A simple retrospective that organizes what you Did, what you Learned, and what you’ll do Next (Y-W-T), to clarify learning and the next action

  • Suited to turning the learning cycle quickly on a fact basis

• KPT

  • A method that surfaces Keep and Problem and decides Try to make improvement actions concrete

  • Suited to everyday work improvement and continuous team improvement

• Timeline

  • A method that arranges events in chronological order and looks back deeply while sharing insights and meaning

  • Effective for giving meaning to the experience of the whole project and extracting deep learning and knowledge

Figure 1: Types of retrospective and their overview

(Time required)

・Weekly retrospective: around 5–15 minutes

・Mid-project (phase-boundary) retrospective: around 30 minutes–1 hour

・Post-project retrospective: around 1–2 hours

Tips & cautions for use

▼Stance and mindset for a retrospective: “Present the present.” (give the present to the future)

It is also important not to over-expect that a retrospective will yield something useful right away. Simply recording present events and feelings—with the sense of handing a treasure to your future selves—has value in itself. Even casual events and feelings right in front of you often generate great meaning and insight just by being kept so you can look back on them later.

Therefore, it is fine to do a retrospective only to the extent currently possible. What you leave from a weekly retrospective can be a single word (one sticky note), and it is fine to have weeks where you leave nothing at all.

Seeking perfection often makes it hard to keep up, so it is best to proceed with the attitude of “let’s leave even just one sticky note.”

■ Track record & usefulness

(Track record)

Carried out on an ongoing basis in some projects at national agencies—including the Administrative Management Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications—and at local governments

Figure 2: Example of a retrospective conducted using an online whiteboard (a retrospective style fusing KPT and YWT)

■ Next steps

(Advanced training & practice)

None in particular.

(References and their overview)

• Kazuki Mori, Building Agile Teams: A Retrospective Guidebook—Getting Started, Retrospective Formats, Methods, and Mindset, Shoeisha, 2021

• Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (Japanese edition), Ohmsha, 2007

■ Notes & glossary

None in particular.