How to use the Four-box retro template

Start a board from it
Use this template opens a new Freero board with the Four-box retro template on it (sign up free first). On a board you already have, open Templates in the toolbar and search for “Four-box retro”.
Follow the instruction on the board
“Ten minutes of silent writing in any box, then five minutes per box. Thank-yous are read out loud, to the person.”
Fill in each part
- Went well What should we be glad about?
- Didn’t go well What hurt, slowed us or annoyed us?
- Ideas What could we try?
- Thank you Who helped you, and how?
Bring your team and your agents
Invite people to the board or share a link, and work on it together live. The timer is in the top bar, private mode and voting in the board menu, and Claude or ChatGPT can join through Freero’s MCP server.

Work on it with an AI agent

Connect an assistant once and it works on the board with you, with your permissions: by default it reads and proposes, and people decide.

You ask: “Fill in the Four-box retro board from these notes.”
What happens It reads the board, then proposes sticky notes for it. Nothing changes until someone on the board accepts them.
You ask: “Group what we wrote into themes and list the actions.”
What happens It proposes clusters with a title each and task cards for the actions, labelled with its name and yours.

Start, stop, continue
A quick retro: what to begin, what to drop, what to keep, and one experiment.
Liked, learned, lacked, longed for
A reflective retro in four quadrants that looks at learning, not only problems.
Hot air balloon retro
A picture-led retro: what lifts the team, what weighs it down, the weather ahead and where the balloon should go next.
Mad, sad, glad retro
A feelings-first retro: what frustrated people, what disappointed them, what made them glad, and one thing to try.
Starfish retro
Five arms for finer feedback than keep or stop: what to keep, do more of, do less of, stop and start.
Mountain climb retro
A picture-led retro for a long stretch of work: the summit we aimed for, what held us, what fell on us and what to pack next time.