Move into the New Year with Clarity
Your Guide for a Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective
By Liz Boudreau – Liz is the founder of Uncharted Travel Consultancy, dedicated to supporting small travel companies and leaders with tailored travel solutions. As a travel designer, she collaborates with intrepid travelers seeking custom-curated, meaningful itineraries.
The beginning of a new year often finds us reflecting on the whirlwind of the past months—grand plans, thoughtfully crafted objectives, and killer KPIs laid out with precision. Yet, as the year draws to a close, we may find ourselves on a path quite different from the one we envisioned. It's a common tale, one where getting caught up working in the business, rather than on it, becomes an all-too-familiar trap for everyone, from founders and executives to individual contributors.
So, how do we navigate this seemingly inevitable course? The work keeps flowing, priorities constantly shift, and the world around us evolves. The answer lies in how we choose to interact with this environment and define our own success. Enter the Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective—a three-part exercise that not only identifies areas for improvement but also serves as a collective and therapeutic breath for your team.
Let's break it down.
Purpose of a Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective:
Review past activities, projects, and milestones from the last year.
Identify activities to stop, those to continue, and new ones to start.
💡 Pro tip: Integrate a post-mortem into every project or trip to identify successes, areas for improvement, and implement changes collaboratively. This type of activity further promotes the ethos of continuous improvement, quality control, and team accountability.
Benefits of a Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective:
Fosters team collaboration and trust.
Provides a space for reviewing past performance and activities.
Encourages open discussions and solutions.
Collective identification of improvements ensures critical team buy-in.
Continuous improvement becomes a team ethos.
Mistakes are learned from, not repeated.
Achieve clarity in objectives, activities, and pave the way for future planning.
Hosting Your First Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective:
Collect Your Thoughts:
Identify major activities from the past year for discussion.
Crystalize Your Ask:
Make your intention clear and ask your team to come prepared.
Announce Your Idea:
Communicate the purpose and your expectations.
Email an agenda and prompt brainstorming with identified activities.
Rules of Engagement:
Set ground rules for the meeting; there are no bad ideas.
Create a Document:
Use a tool of your choice, (I like PowerPoint or Google Slides), for note-taking with sections for Start, Stop, and Continue.
Discussion:
Begin with what to Stop, then Continue, and finally, what to Start.
I find that beginning with the Stop helps uncover the areas of improvement and spawn ideas for what your team should be doing instead.
For Stop, what activities were inefficient, wasteful, or had a negative impact on the team?
For Continue, what activities produced great results, but haven’t been formalized as a standard process?
For Start, what tools, processes, or activities would lead to greater productivity and success?
Area of Improvement:
Discuss effective ways to implement changes.
Rank and Recap:
Prioritize activities if the start list is extensive.
Follow Up:
Send meeting notes, decisions, assignments, and next steps.
Assign a project leader to ensure changes are implemented.
Schedule a follow-up meeting if necessary.
Now equipped with the knowledge of a Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective, its significance, and how to conduct one, empower your team to be the change they want to see. Set yourselves on a clear path for more productive work in the new year!
Liz Boudreau is the founder of Uncharted Travel Consultancy and is ready for your next consulting project—whether it's facilitating your next retrospective, launching a new product, or creating standard operating procedures. She tailors solutions perfectly to your business needs.