Start, Stop, Continue
activities for reflection
Reflection involves evaluating your actions, analyzing the outcomes, and finding valuable lessons from your combined experiences. By engaging in mindful reflective practice, you can better understand yourself, how you make decisions, and the consequences of your actions
An activity to define, clarify, and align. Why try Start, Stop, Continue
Are you looking for a way to pause, reflect, and learn from recent experiences?
Activity Objective
A retrospective activity involves looking at past successes and failures to learn from them. Retrospective activities at the end of a sprint or when completing a new project are the optimal time to reflect on the goals and challenges faced and what was done to achieve and mitigate them.
Templates
Number of Players
1-5 (for larger groups, break people into smaller groups)
Activity Duration
30-90 minutes
Instructions
Explain the objective of the game and the meaning of each column to your team members. For example:
START: What should we begin doing? What is working?
STOP: What should we avoid doing? What isn’t working?
CONTINUE: What should we keep doing? What is going well?
Ask each team member to write their ideas on sticky notes and place them in the corresponding column. Encourage them to be specific, constructive, and respectful. Give them 5 minutes to complete this step.
Once everyone has finished, review the sticky notes in each column as a team. Ask each team member to explain their ideas briefly and clarify any questions or doubts. Allow some time for discussion and debate, but avoid getting into arguments or blaming. Try to reach a consensus on the validity and importance of each idea. Give 5 minutes for each column.
After reviewing all the columns, ask each team member to vote on the top three ideas in each column that they think are the most critical or impactful for the team's improvement. They can use stickers or markers to indicate their votes. Give them 5 minutes to complete this step.
Once everyone has voted, tally up the votes and identify the top-ranking ideas in each column. Discuss how you can prioritize or implement these ideas as a team. Try to find at least one quick win you can execute immediately. Assign roles and responsibilities for the next steps and set a timeline for follow-up. Give 10 minutes for this step.
Thank your team members for their participation and feedback. Remind them of the benefits of this game and how it can help you improve your team performance and collaboration. End the game on a positive note.
Agenda Example
Welcome and introduction (5 minutes)
Icebreaker Question (5 minutes)
Start, Stop, Continue (15 minutes)
Reflection and closing (5 minutes)
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Script & Talk Track
Hello everyone, welcome to our team feedback and improvement session. Today, we will play Start, Stop, and Continue. This is a simple and effective way to gather feedback from each other on what we should start doing, stop doing, and continue doing to improve our team performance and collaboration.
The game is straightforward to play. We have a template with three columns: Start, Stop, and Continue. Each column represents a different type of feedback:
Start: What should we begin doing? What is working?
Stop: What should we avoid doing? What isn't working?
Continue: What should we keep doing? What is going well?
We will use sticky notes to write down our ideas and place them in the corresponding column. We will then review the ideas as a team and vote on the top three in each column that are the most important or impactful for our team's improvement. We will then discuss prioritizing or implementing these ideas and assign roles and responsibilities for the next steps.
The game will take about 30 minutes, and it will help us to:
- Share our perspectives and opinions on our team performance and collaboration
- Identify our strengths and areas for improvement
- Generate actionable ideas for enhancing our team's effectiveness
- Align our goals and expectations
- Build trust and rapport among team members
Are you ready to play? Let's get started!
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