The Keep, Add, Less, More retrospective
Keep, Add, Less, More (KALM) tunes how your team works by degree instead of all-or-nothing. What goes in each column and how to run it.
Keep, Add, Less, More, often shortened to KALM, asks how much, not only whether. Most changes a team needs aren't on or off. You don't need to stop code review, only cut the long back-and-forth. You don't need a new meeting, only a bit more of a conversation you already have.
It suits a team whose process mostly works and needs tuning rather than an overhaul.
The four columns
- Keep: What is working exactly as it is? Deliberate choices, not filler: "Keep the 15-minute standup. It's short and nobody skips it."
- Add: What new practice should we bring in? Something the team doesn't do yet: "Add a short written summary to every pull request." Each addition takes time from something else, so keep the bar high.
- Less: What should we do less of? Something useful in smaller doses: "Less time estimating small bugs." Say roughly how much less.
- More: What should we do more of? Something working that deserves more room: "More pairing on unfamiliar code." Say roughly how much more.
When to use it
Use it with established teams, when Start · Stop · Continue keeps producing the same cards, or a few weeks after a process change, to tune it.
If the team needs bigger decisions, such as dropping a practice entirely, Start · Stop · Continue is more direct. If you want both the degrees and the clean breaks, Starfish has five arms: Keep doing, Less of, More of, Stop doing and Start doing.
How to run it
- Set the stage (5 minutes). Review last retro's actions. Explain that Less and More are about amounts: a card in Less isn't a vote to stop.
- Write alone (7 to 10 minutes). Everyone writes in all four columns, saying "how much" on Less and More cards where they can.
- Group (5 to 10 minutes). Merge duplicates. If the same practice is in one person's Less and another's More, put them side by side: that tension is the discussion.
- Vote (3 minutes). Spend votes on the topics that matter most. Hidden tallies stop people following the early leader.
- Discuss (20 minutes). Take the topics in order of votes. For Less and More, agree a concrete amount: "pair on at least one story a week," not "pair more."
- Agree actions (5 to 10 minutes). Two or three action items, each with an owner and a due date. A change of degree needs a measure, or nobody will know whether it happened.
- Close (3 minutes). Read back the actions and the Keep list, so everyone knows what not to change.
Tips
- Make Less and More measurable. "More testing" can't be checked. "Write a test for every bug fix" can.
- Make room for Add. New practices cost attention. If you add one, look in Less for something to cut back.
- Treat Keep as a decision. The Keep list says "this works, leave it alone." Write it somewhere visible.
Run it in Scrums
Choose New session → Retrospective on your team's page and pick Keep · Add · Less · More from the formats. Everyone writes privately, and other people's cards stay face-down until the facilitator reveals them, so nobody's first card sets the tone. Then group similar cards (or let Auto-group cluster them), vote with hidden tallies, and discuss the topics in order, adding action items with an owner and a due date. Open action items come back in the next retro's Review step. Retros are anonymous by default, and Scrums is free.
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Questions
What does KALM stand for?
Keep, Add, Less, More: keep what works, add a new practice, do less of one thing and more of another. The letters sometimes come in a different order, but the questions are the same.
What's the difference between Keep Add Less More and Start Stop Continue?
Start Stop Continue is all-or-nothing. Keep Add Less More adds degrees, so you can turn something down without ending it, or up without making it a rule. Use the first for clear decisions and this one for tuning.
How is it different from the starfish retrospective?
Starfish has the same Less of and More of, plus Stop doing and Start doing, in five arms. Keep Add Less More has no stop column, which keeps the focus on adjusting rather than cutting.