Retro Topics Wheel
The retro topics wheel picks a discussion prompt at random, which is the cheapest way to stop a retrospective producing the same three comments every fortnight.
Ten prompts on the wheel, several of them deliberately uncomfortable.
Retrospectives decay in a predictable way. The format is the same every time, so the answers become the same every time, and after a few months the meeting produces a list nobody reads. The problem is rarely the team — it is that "what went well, what went badly" stops generating new thought once everyone knows the shape of the expected answer.
Changing the question changes the answers. "What are we pretending is fine" gets at something a well-went-badly grid never will, and the fact that a wheel produced it rather than the facilitator makes it easier to answer honestly.
Two or three prompts is usually enough for a session. Spin, discuss properly, spin again — better than working through all ten at speed. Pair it with the standup order wheel so the same person is not always answering first.
Retro Topics Wheel — questions
Why change the retro format?
Because a fixed format produces fixed answers. Once the team knows the shape of the expected response, the meeting produces a list nobody reads. Different questions surface different things.
How many prompts should we use per session?
Two or three, discussed properly. Working through all ten at speed produces the same shallow output as the format you are trying to replace.
Are the harder prompts a good idea?
They are the ones that produce something new, and a wheel makes them easier to ask — nobody chose to point the awkward question at the team, which lowers the cost of answering it honestly.