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Facilitating a retrospective

A useful retrospective follows a clear flow. Retrospective supports each stage, from opening to wrap-up.

Invite participants​

Two ways to bring people in:

  • Internal sharing — share the retro with a user, a team or the whole organization from the Share menu (see Sharing content).
  • Public link — an external participant joins the retro through the link, with no Abyss account. They pick an alias to identify themselves.

Anonymity and unmasking​

Every participant enters the retro with an alias: their cards show under that pseudonym, encouraging candor.

At any moment, a participant can choose to unmask: their real name (or chosen alias) becomes visible to others. Useful once the discussion is engaged and anonymity is no longer needed.

Phase 1 — Collection​

Give participants a few minutes to drop their cards in the sections. This phase is deliberately individual, so each person can think without being influenced.

Phase 2 — Grouping​

Once cards are placed, the facilitator physically groups them by theme by moving them close to each other on the canvas. Duplicates merge, topics emerge.

Phase 3 — Discussion and actions​

Discuss the priority topics one at a time. For each, try to land on a concrete action: who does what, by when. These actions can be captured in a dedicated card or moved to a Board to track follow-up.

Wrap up​

Mark the retro as completed once the discussion is over. Sections and cards then become immutable: you keep a faithful snapshot of the outcome.

Sharing results​

The public link lets you distribute the outcome to other stakeholders (management, neighboring teams) in read-only mode, with or without an Abyss account.