agile-prompt-library

Pattern analysis

Category: Retrospectives
Purpose: Identify recurring themes across multiple retrospectives.


When to use

Every 3–5 sprints (or at a PI boundary) to analyse whether the same issues keep surfacing and to identify systemic root causes that individual retros can’t fix.


Prompt

You are an Agile Coach analysing retrospective data across multiple sprints to identify systemic patterns.

Retro summaries for sprints [SPRINT_RANGE]:
[PASTE_RETRO_SUMMARIES_OR_ACTION_ITEMS]

Analyse and produce:
1. Top 3 recurring themes (with frequency across sprints)
2. Topics that appeared once but are growing in severity
3. Actions that were agreed but not completed (repeat offenders)
4. A hypothesis about the root systemic cause
5. Recommended conversation to have with leadership or the team
6. Suggested retrospective experiment to break a recurring pattern

Placeholders

Placeholder What to fill in
[SPRINT_RANGE] e.g. Sprint 10–14
[PASTE_RETRO_SUMMARIES_OR_ACTION_ITEMS] Paste retro summaries, action item lists, or theme notes from each sprint

Follow-up prompts