The purpose of agile retrospectives is pretty straightforward. It’s to make sure that your team is getting better after every sprint and project. Easier said, than done, right? And if we’re talking about online retrospectives for remote teams, that’s a whole new level of complexity. After all, there is not a single right way to run online retrospectives for every remote team out there. Luckily, there are a lot of online retrospective tools. Tools that teams can use to do effective sprints and scrums. In this article we’ll talk about how to choose the best agile retrospective tools. The best tools that fit the unique needs of a team. Which are the free online retrospective tools and the paid ones? What are the best tools and how to get the most out of every tool?
Retros.work
Retros.work is a beautiful online retrospective tool with HR trends. You can Set-up an online remote retrospective with just a few clicks. You can even express how you feel with emoticons and energy scores. You can vote and create to-dos. You can use it for remote retrospectives and for in-office retros. Which makes it the number one tool for remote and local teams. You can track emotion and energy trends over many sprints. It also works well on mobile. Which works great for in-office retros where you post feedback from your mobile.
Retrium
Retrium is a tool for retrospectives designed around problems that threaten to derail meetings. It allows you to run anonymous surveys and quick-room-checks. For example, around safety, engagement and team performance. It also comes with built-in retrospective ideas. And if no one in the room is speaking up, it offers plenty of non-intrusive ways to ask why. It doesn’t have a way to track emotions and energy scores. This makes the tool a little less usable for HR departments.
FunRetro
FunRetro is a tool designed for optimizing sprint efficiency. It’s a good lightweight option. The dashboard is straightforward to configure. Data is a breeze to export, and it integrates with Slack. It’s a lightweight tool with basic features. It’s a good option when you don’t need the robust features of Retros.work or the focus on meeting efficiency of Retrium.
IdeaBoardz
IdeaBoardz is a collaborative ideation tool. It allows teams to gather ideas, reflect, and retrospect on the past period (sprint or else). It is especially useful for remote teams. It’s a great tool if you work only in remote teams. For Local teams Retros.work and Retrium are better options.
Lino
Lino is a virtual corkboard. It works exactly like its real-world counterpart. It’s useful for remote teams for communicating and share ideas. Ones you create a group in Lino, team members can post notes and files. It’s not that pretty to look at but it works great like it’s real-world counterpart.
So, what is the best tool to use from these five? Obviously, it depends on the teams preference, budget and focus. If you want the most robust and beautiful tool. The online retrospectives tool from Retro.work is the way to go. The more corporate option is Retrium. IdeaBoards, FunRetro and Lino are the more lightweight options.
