Run your first Scrums retro on Monday: a checklist
2026-11-06 · The Scrums team
Ten minutes on a Friday afternoon, and Monday's retro runs itself. Here's the whole setup, from signing up to the summary.
It's Friday. If your team's next retro is on Monday, here's everything you need to do to run it in Scrums, in about ten minutes. It's free, and nobody needs to install anything: Scrums runs in the browser on computers, tablets and phones.
Today: set up (about ten minutes)
- Sign up with your email address, or with a Google account.
- Create your team and give it a name.
- Invite your teammates. Choose Invite on the team's page and share the link with them.
- Plan the session. New session → Plan for later puts the retro on the team's calendar, with a date, a time in your timezone and how long it runs. Make it repeat every week or every two, three or four weeks if you like, and everyone on the team can get a calendar invitation.
- Pick a format. Start · Stop · Continue and Went Well · To Improve · Ideas are good first choices. There are eleven built in, and you can make your own on the Templates tab.
Monday: run it
- Start it from the planned session. Whoever starts it first starts it for everyone.
- Warm up. Use the icebreaker question, shuffle for another, or write your own.
- Write. Everyone writes their cards privately. Keep an eye on the "people are writing" count, and use the timer if you like.
- Reveal and group. Drag similar cards together, or try Auto-group.
- Vote. Everyone spends their votes on the topics that matter most to them. The tallies stay hidden until voting closes.
- Discuss. Go down the ranked topics. Add action items as you go, each with an owner and a due date.
- Close. The summary shows the ranked topics, the action items and who came. It's saved as a page for the team, and you can export it as Markdown, CSV or PDF.
Afterwards
Each action item shows up in its owner's My action items, with a reminder when it's nearly due. At your next retro, they're waiting in the Review step, so the team starts by seeing what got done.
From signing up to your first session.
Want to see it before you commit? Run a demo retro with our sample team, no account needed. Or sign up and get Monday ready now.
Choosing a format? Each of the eleven retro formats has its own guide.