Liked
Experiences and results the team appreciated and may want to repeat.
- Strong collaboration across roles.
- Faster, more helpful code reviews.
- Positive customer feedback.
- A focused and successful sprint planning session.
4Ls Retrospective
Reflect on what the team liked, learned, lacked, and longed for—then turn insight into meaningful improvement.
What Is a 4Ls Retrospective?
The 4Ls Retrospective is a balanced Sprint Retrospective technique organized around Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed For. It combines appreciation, learning, challenges, and future possibilities so the team does not focus only on success or failure.
Teams use 4Ls after a sprint with meaningful discoveries, a release, a project milestone, or a period of change. It is especially useful when learning deserves as much attention as delivery and when unmet needs should be discussed without turning the meeting into a complaint session.
The Four 4Ls Categories
Learned
New knowledge, evidence, or insight gained during the sprint.
- How to use a new development framework.
- A better estimation technique.
- Lessons from a production incident.
- An improved testing strategy.
Lacked
Resources, clarity, access, or support that was missing when the team needed it.
- Clear requirements and acceptance criteria.
- A reliable test environment.
- Stakeholder availability for decisions.
- Current technical documentation.
Longed For
Capabilities and conditions that could improve future work.
- Better automation and faster deployments.
- More pairing opportunities.
- Additional training and knowledge sharing.
- A simpler release process.
Specific What Went Well examples help teams write useful Liked cards, while constructive What Didn't Go Well examples help describe what was Lacked without assigning blame.
How to Facilitate the 4Ls
- Prepare the exercise. Create four clearly labeled areas and define the sprint or event being reviewed.
- Explain each category. Distinguish a concrete missing need from a future wish, and an enjoyable outcome from a lesson.
- Encourage participation. Give everyone quiet writing time before discussion so every perspective can emerge.
- Group similar ideas. Combine related responses and identify themes that appear across categories.
- Prioritize meaningful improvements. Discuss the themes with the greatest effect on learning, delivery, or team health.
- Create sprint commitments. Select a few actions, name owners, and decide when progress will be reviewed.
Use these Sprint Retrospective best practices to maintain psychological safety and follow-through. Additional retrospective examples can help participants make cards specific.
Discussion Tips
- Invite honest participation without pressuring anyone to disclose more than feels safe.
- Celebrate accomplishments and learning, not only completed output.
- Ask what evidence changed the team's understanding.
- Prioritize the missing need or future opportunity with the greatest impact.
- End with specific, achievable commitments for the next sprint.
A retrospective icebreaker can establish a learning mindset. Distributed teams can use the participation practices in the remote retrospective guide.
Choosing the Right Format
Choose 4Ls when learning and unmet needs deserve focused attention. Use Start, Stop, Continue for a simpler process review, Mad, Sad, Glad for emotional impact, Sailboat for goals and risks, or Starfish when More Of and Less Of distinctions matter.
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