4Ls

Learn how to facilitate the 4Ls sticky note technique.

Take Retrium's Technique Quiz to figure out which retrospective technique best fits the needs of your next retrospective.

This popular technique is loved by agile leaders for its simplicity and ability to help teams establish both short and long-term goals based on the team’s reflections. This template is best suited for occasions when you want to highlight both the positives and negatives through the lens of growth. It can be a great way to examine a past experience and use the learnings to establish future experiments.

The 4L's stand for: 

1. Liked

2. Learned

3. Lacked

4. Longed For

Facilitating the Process

The process of running this type of retrospective in Retrium works like this:

1. Everyone brainstorms ideas to add to sticky notes under the “liked,” “learned,” “lacked,” and “longed for” columns in the “think” phase

2. The team then organizes sticky notes they with to discuss together during the “group” stage 

3. Everyone privately votes on which notes or groups they think are important to discuss during the “vote” phase

4. Retrium organizes the most important topics in order of votes during the “discuss” step, where your team can choose to discuss one or more items and turn the next steps into specific action items

5. The team can then reflect on the effectiveness of the retrospective as a whole during the “close” phase, and your team can choose to review those results before concluding the meeting