The Chinese New Year Retrospective uses traditional themes of renewal, gratitude, and aspiration to guide teams through a comprehensive review of their work and relationships.
By incorporating elements of this ancient tradition, teams explore their achievements and challenges through a fresh cultural lens. The format encourages participants to honor past accomplishments, learn from setbacks, and set intentional goals for the future - mirroring the spirit of new beginnings that Chinese New Year represents.
This retrospective is particularly powerful for fostering cultural awareness while maintaining focus on continuous improvement. It helps teams break free from conventional retrospective patterns by introducing rich metaphors and traditions that spark new insights and perspectives.
What is The Chinese New Year Retrospective
Year of Achievement
What accomplishments made you proud this past cycle?
This topic celebrates successes and achievements, similar to how Chinese New Year honors accomplishments. Encourage participants to share both big wins and small victories that contributed to team success.
Fortune and Wisdom
What valuable lessons did we learn?
Like the wisdom shared during Chinese New Year gatherings, this section focuses on learning and growth. Guide the team to reflect on insights gained from both successes and challenges.
Spring Cleaning
What should we leave behind as we move forward?
Similar to the Chinese New Year tradition of cleaning before the new year, this topic helps teams identify practices, habits, or approaches that no longer serve them well.
New Year Wishes
What positive changes should we implement?
Like making wishes for the New Year, this topic focuses on actionable improvements and positive changes the team wants to implement. Encourage specific, achievable goals.
Suggested Icebreaker Questions
- If you were a Chinese zodiac animal, which would you be and why?
- What's your favorite way to celebrate new beginnings?
Ideas and Tips for Your Retrospective Meeting
- Share some basic information about Chinese New Year traditions before starting to provide context
- Use Chinese zodiac animals as metaphors for different types of challenges or successes
- Encourage participants to think in cycles, like the Chinese calendar, rather than linear time
- Consider using Chinese proverbs or wisdom as discussion prompts
- Keep the atmosphere celebratory while maintaining focus on improvement
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How to Run Effective Meetings with TeamRetro
Start Your Session in a Click
Log into TeamRetro and choose your template. Customise questions and the workflow to create your perfect retro for your team.
Create Your Team Easily – No Separate Accounts Needed
Brainstorm Individually – Free From Bias
Smart Grouping for Faster Insights
Fair, Flexible, and Fast Voting
Engage, React, and Capture Key Insights
Walk your team through ideas one by one with Presentation Mode. Stay in sync, spark real-time discussions, and capture feedback with comments, live reactions, and polls—all in one place.
Turn Ideas Into Action
Propose next steps with team buy-in, get AI-powered action suggestions, and keep everything in one place. Committed actions sync to your personal dashboard and integrate with your workflow tools—keeping you on track.
Save, Share, and Stay on Track
Get quick AI-powered summaries, add facilitator notes, and store retrospectives in your library for easy access. Schedule your next session and track published actions to keep your team accountable at the next retro.
Turn Team Data into Actionable Insights
Uncover trends, common themes, and key engagement metrics at a glance. Track sentiment shifts, analyze conversations, and monitor completed actions to drive continuous improvement.