I tried the speed car abyss out of curiosity. I thought it might be interesting. It went amazingly well. Conversation started the moment we started putting stickers on the board.
We were able to distill thoughts down into reasonable actions and we can make a move on it. Definitely a keeper. Thank you.
(Yes, I even drew the car)
A useful one I run every once in while, especially with teams who are new to (or out of practice with) retrospectives, is a Magic Wand retrospective.
Itās a twist on the basic retrospective. As with the basic format you create Doing Well and Could Improve columns on a whiteboard, but then add a third called Magic Wand.
The purpose of the Magic Wand column is to challenge the team to come up with 1 or 2 issues/fixes that if they could wave a magic wand and could instantly fix.
The benefits of this retrospective are:
@andycleff I am buying this MFer immediately and using it as much as possible. Need to chat with you sometime on your experiences with using the game. Awesome!
@troy when I run Anchors and Engines I draw a cloud up in the corner for āthoughtsā which are for random ideas you want to try. But your drawing is super pretty!
The exercise is a blastā¦ #dadhumor
And I need to run in more - to break down component silos, and demonstrate the value of both: semi persistent teams (shared vocabulary) as well as dynamic reteaming (shared learning). Please, sir, can my teams have some more slack time?
Happy to chatā¦ and not just w @chrismurman - anyone else here taken the exercise for a spin? Ping here, and we can set up an evening callā¦ maybe even make a podcast out of it?
I love this list so much - many of my favorite retros are already listed on here actually, as the ones I use most often are either very simple 4Ls or start / stop / continue, or sailboat / speedboat, or the speedcar one. Thereās one Iām not sure I see listed which teams have found useful on occasion - a timeline retro, where you have the sprint timeline up and also map it to how you were feeling. Can also be called an emotional seismograph I believe. I sometimes use this for project retros but also (depending on the team, or the sprint, or both) it can be good for the sprint retro.
Thanks for all the great ideas - this is an awesome list and some great discussions. 
@Rachel_G - thanks for piling on!!!
So many great ideas!!!
My last couple went great. I did the Nirvana Retro and the Catapult retro. The catapult felt a little forced, but the nirvana retro sparked some amazing discussions. I still havenāt taken dow the results from the walls.
Nirvana Retro
I asked teams to tell me what there coding nirvana was. They grabbed stickies and started throwing them on the board. When they had basically filled the board. We started going through them and talking about what they meant to each person.
Each team member then distilled it down into their own personal Nirvana.
Mine was this one.
But truthfully, I thought the other one was so profound. Iāve left it on the wall.
http://www.funretrospectives.com/defining-nirvana/
I followed this up with the catapult retro. If you are interested, I can post it.
I loved this retro. We have some really open and heartfelt conversation. We are now trying to reach this coding zen 
Iām experimenting with Trust and Ownership Retroās
Starts with an assessment tool, from Pixtonās bookā¦ (https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Culture-Leading-through-Ownership/dp/0321940148) and where it goesā¦ nobody knowsā¦
My facilitation notes:
Facilitation Notes.pdf (245.2 KB)
Assessment instruments (which I heavily customize)
Results help me design next stepsā¦
Just found a really cool one today from @scrumandginger on Twitter. http://oikosofy.com/speed-dating-agile-retrospective-style/ Is the original full post. Havenāt tried it yet but I plan on it.
Premise: by Jessica Long
Around the time that the Agile Manifesto materialized, another fast paced and sleeker model of partnering and collaboration was popularizing ā speed dating! It only seemed fitting that the two could somehow co-exist, even if just in a playful and platonic manner. This is a fun twist for teammates that have established a good connection but might need a break from the more traditional retrospective ceremony.
What you can expect to get out of this exercise
While you may encounter a lot of baffled looks upon introducing this exercise, you can rest assured that the end result will liven the room and afford heightened relationships. The activity is unique in the sense that teammates will have an opportunity to discuss their thoughts one on one.
For how to do it check out the link above.
Modern agile Retro:
Instructions:
Use the 4 sections of the Modern Agile Values
Review the values with your team
Ask the team to identify things that happened during the sprint that met the modern agile values and post it in the correlating section.
Ask the team to identify things that happened that didnāt meet the modern agile values or how we could improve at these values and post in the correlating section.
Make sure to remind the team to not point fingers and that we fail and succeed as these values as a team.
Record action items and make a plan.
Love this, @troyā¦ Cockburnās Heart of Agile 
could be another ā4-boxā model to experiment with.
Awesome suggestion @troy, definitely going to give that one a try in the future and then perhaps Iāll try experimenting the Heart of Agile one as well @thostaylor! Thank you to you both for sharing.
Came up with a new retro format tonight. Havenāt seen it anywhere so thought Iād post the idea here.
Today a SM and I facilitated the Speed Dating retro. I have to say it was REALLY awesome. It caused an hour of conversation after with some great action items and most importantly the team dynamics were noticeably improved by the end.
Speed dating retro is a fun one! I had to the pleasure of working with Jess. When I first herd the concept I was like WTF! Then I tried it and was like Holy Sh!t it works.
