4Ls Retrospective

What is the 4Ls retrospective?

The 4Ls separates reflection into four emotional registers: Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for. Mary Gorman and Ellen Gottesdiener wrote it up in the late 2000s as a retro format suited to longer cycles like projects, releases, and quarters, where a three-column format doesn't have enough surface area for everything the team wants to say.

The four columns each pull at a different angle. "Liked" is about satisfaction. "Learned" is about new knowledge. "Lacked" is about what was missing. "Longed for" is about what the team wished they'd had. The split surfaces material that gets lumped into "what to improve" in shorter formats.

When to use it

Use it at the end of a long sprint, project, or quarter when there's a lot to unpack and you want a structured way to surface both positive and negative feelings. It works well for project closes, post-launch retros, and end-of-year team reflections. The "Learned" column is particularly valuable after technical work where the team picked up new tooling or domain knowledge that should be captured before it fades.

When not to use it

Skip it for one-week sprints. There's rarely enough new material to fill four distinct columns weekly, and the format will produce thin, repetitive output. Stick with Start, Stop, Continue or What Went Well, What to Improve, Actions for short cycles. Skip it also when the team is in a strong action mode and needs to walk out with commitments. 4Ls is built for reflection, not for follow-through.

Column prompts

• Liked — Ask what the team enjoyed about the work. Practices, collaborations, moments. Push past "the team is great" to specifics: which decision, which pairing session, which tool.
• Learned — Ask what new knowledge the team picked up. Technical, domain, organisational. This is where the team captures the things that took effort to figure out so they don't have to figure them out again next quarter.
• Lacked — Ask what was missing during the work. Tooling, decisions, information, people. Be careful to keep this distinct from Longed for: Lacked is about gaps that hurt the work.
• Longed for — Ask what the team wished they'd had even if they got by without it. Aspirations, comforts, ideal-world setups. The split with Lacked matters: Longed for is about ambition, not about what broke.

Facilitator tips

• Plan for 60 minutes if you have any meaningful project to reflect on. 45 is the floor, not the comfortable case.
• Spend extra time on Learned. It's the column most often skipped and the one with the longest-term value. It's how the team writes its institutional memory.
• Run the columns sequentially rather than all at once. Liked, then Learned, then Lacked, then Longed for. The progression matters.
• Distinguish Lacked from Longed for explicitly when you introduce the format. Otherwise they collapse into one column and you waste a quadrant.
• Pick one or two items from Lacked or Longed for to convert into actions. The rest become input for planning the next cycle, not immediate commitments.
• Capture the Learned column somewhere durable, like a team wiki or a project doc, so the knowledge survives past the retro.

Common mistakes

• Lacked and Longed for collapse into the same column. Name the difference up front and protect it.
• Treating Learned as throwaway. It's the column that pays back over the next year. Capture it properly.
• Trying to convert every Lacked item into an action. Most are inputs to future planning, not sprint commitments.
• Running it in a 30-minute slot. The format needs time to breathe and the team will produce shallow cards if you rush.
• Using it weekly and watching the columns repeat. This is a long-cycle format, not a sprint format.

FAQ