DAKI Retrospective (Drop, Add, Keep, Improve)
Make deliberate process changes with four clear decision buckets.
DAKI stands for Drop, Add, Keep, Improve. It is a process-focused retrospective format that moves beyond identifying problems and asks the team to make concrete decisions about what to change, introduce, protect, and refine.
Board columns
Drop
What should the team stop doing entirely? Practices, meetings, or processes that cost more than they deliver and should be removed.
Add
What new practices should the team introduce? Tools, ceremonies, or behaviours the team has not tried yet but believes would help.
Keep
What is working well and should be explicitly continued? Protecting wins is as important as fixing problems.
Improve
What works but could work better? Practices worth refining rather than replacing—small changes with compounding returns.
When to use this template
DAKI works best when a team is ready to make deliberate process decisions—not just identify problems. Use it after a few regular retros, when the team has a clear sense of what is and is not working.
How to run it
- 1
Brief the team on the four buckets—emphasise Drop and Improve as the action-rich columns.
- 2
Give 8–10 minutes to write privately.
- 3
Reveal and cluster by theme.
- 4
Vote on Drop and Improve themes with the highest impact.
- 5
Discuss root causes for top-voted items.
- 6
Close with one or two concrete changes, each with a named owner and a next-sprint check-in date.
Facilitation tips
Drop is the hardest column—teams resist removing things even when they have stopped adding value.
Distinguish Improve from Add: Improve refines something existing; Add introduces something new.
Revisit DAKI decisions after two sprints to confirm changes actually happened.
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