What is a Retro Candy Party?

09 Aug 2018 - Brigitte Maenhout

A fun and engaging retro format for distributed agile teams. Recommended for newly formed teams.

Step 1.  Prepare and prerequisites

As a scrum master, mail your team members a 'candy retro package' containing:

Outcome of step 1: It's a nice little present to receive as a team member. Sets a positive mood for the retro.

Feel free to use our invitation template and our warning template. If you make your own, share it with us in the comment section, we love to see the creative brains at work! :)

Step 2. The Retro Candy Party

These are the instructions for the Retro Candy Party:

  1. Put your video camera on
  2. Put the bag of sweets in front of you
  3. When it's your turn, close your eyes and pick a candy
  4. Show the candy to the camera so your team can see what color it is
  5. Look at the color on the list, pick a question you want to answer and share the question and answer with your team.
  6. Your team can ask follow up questions
  7. Get the next person to pick a candy

Color questions: (adapt the colors and the questions if you need to)

Outcome of step 2: The questions are designed to be a mix of fun questions that give a bit of insight into likes/dislikes on a personal and professional level. This makes it easy for the team to see what they have in common and it also sets the foundation to discuss team values and behaviors.

The Retro Candy Jar party is a variation of the Candy Jar retro you can find on: http://www.funretrospectives.com/candy-love/

We would love to hear your experiences with this retro, so please comment, share pictures and experiences! The agile community is a community of collaboration, so share the love! <3

Thank you and have a lovely day!

Brigitte