Mad, Sad, Glad

What is the Mad, Sad, Glad retrospective?

Mad, Sad, Glad asks team members to bucket their reflections by the emotion they felt during the sprint. The format puts emotions on the table explicitly, which is useful for teams under stress or recovering from a difficult release. It's the closest thing in the retro toolkit to a permission slip for people to say "this part made me angry" without having to dress it up as a process improvement.

The format is older than agile. Therapists and group facilitators have used variants of it for decades. It made its way into software retros in the mid-2000s as teams started running into the limits of action-only formats during stressful periods. Sometimes the team needs to talk about how the work felt before they can talk about how to change it.

When to use it

Use it after a release that didn't go well, after team conflict, or when the team has gone quiet about how they actually feel about the work. If the last few retros have produced nothing but polite Start, Stop, Continue cards while everyone has clearly been frustrated, switch to this format. It also works well as a reset retro: the first one a team runs after a difficult patch, before they get back to action-focused formats.

When not to use it

Skip it for routine sprints with no emotional charge. The format will feel forced and produce thin output. People will write "glad we shipped" and "mad about the build times" and the meeting will be over in 15 minutes. Skip it also when you don't have time to handle whatever surfaces. If someone writes "mad that my manager keeps overriding me," that's not a card you want to leave hanging at the end of the meeting.

Column prompts

• Mad — Ask what made people frustrated, angry, or resentful during the sprint. Specific moments, not generalised gripes. "The Friday-night deploy that broke prod" beats "lack of process."
• Sad — Ask what made people disappointed or low. Missed goals, lost teammates, work that felt pointless. Sad is the emotion teams are most reluctant to put on the table, so give it explicit room.
• Glad — Ask what made people happy or proud. Wins, moments of connection, things that worked. Don't let this column become a participation trophy. Push for specific moments, not generic praise.

Facilitator tips

• State up front that this retro is about feelings, not process. Some engineers will resist the framing. Give them a moment to settle in before silent writing starts.
• Start with Glad. It warms the room and makes people more willing to write honest cards in the other two columns.
• Read every Mad and Sad card aloud before discussion. Don't summarise. The exact words matter, and people pay closer attention when they hear their own card read back.
• Don't try to solve every Mad item in the meeting. The goal is acknowledgement first, action second. Pick one or two to convert to actions and leave the rest as named-and-heard.
• If a Mad card names a specific person, take it offline. Public callouts in retros damage trust. Acknowledge that the card was raised and arrange a separate conversation.
• Plan for one item to need a real follow-up beyond the retro. Block time for it the same week. Don't let strong emotions sit unaddressed for two more sprints.

Common mistakes

• Running it without a Scrum Master or facilitator who's prepared to handle hard content. If you're not ready, pick a different format.
• Trying to convert Mad cards directly into actions without the acknowledgement step. People need to feel heard first.
• Letting the Glad column dominate the discussion. It's the easy one to talk about and teams will hide there if you let them.
• Reading cards by paraphrasing rather than verbatim. Paraphrasing flattens the emotional content and undercuts the format.
• Skipping the personal callout rule. Letting cards name specific people in the room turns the retro into a complaint forum.

FAQ