# Rapid Retro: an AI retrospective tool that gets to the point

Rapid Retro is a 40-minute AI-facilitated retrospective for 2 to 8 people. It helps a team surface what happened, privately choose what matters, and leave with actions that have names and dates attached.

Clarvelo guides the format so everyone, including the person who booked the meeting, can take part. Guests join with a link and do not need to assemble or learn a whiteboard.

[Start a free Rapid Retro](https://clarvelo.com/auth/register?user_return_to=%2Fapp%2Fworkshops%2Frapid-retro).

## When to use Rapid Retro

Rapid Retro is for engineering, product and delivery teams reviewing a sprint, release, incident follow-up or difficult patch of work. It gives the conversation enough structure to be candid without turning it into a tribunal.

Use it when familiar problems keep resurfacing, when the loudest view tends to win, or when previous retrospectives produced a polished board and no observable change.

- Everyone contributes before discussion begins.
- Private voting limits hierarchy and anchoring.
- Positive patterns are protected, not ignored.
- Every chosen action gets an owner and date.

## The 40-minute format

### Mad, Sad, Glad: 20 minutes

People reflect silently, then share specific moments that frustrated, disappointed or energised them. Clarvelo groups related observations without losing the examples behind them.

### Blind vote: 5 minutes

The team privately chooses which improvement would matter most next. Votes appear together, so confidence, seniority and speaking order do not decide the result.

### Who, What, When: 15 minutes

The winning themes become concrete experiments. The group names who will move each action forward, what will happen, and when the result will be checked.

## Your AI facilitator

Clarvelo runs the process and makes space for the opinions. It explains each activity, protects thinking time, keeps the group moving, summarises faithfully and carries selected themes into the action plan.

It does not decide what people meant, diagnose the team or manufacture agreement. The team owns the meaning and the decisions. Clarvelo takes care of the workshop mechanics.

## Start a retro and leave with the next move

Start the session, share one link, and let Clarvelo guide the team from reflection to follow-through.

[Start a free Rapid Retro](https://clarvelo.com/auth/register?user_return_to=%2Fapp%2Fworkshops%2Frapid-retro).

For more detail about preparing participants, gathering useful evidence and following up on actions, read [How to run a retrospective and why AI changes it](https://clarvelo.com/blog/how-to-run-a-retrospective.md).

[Explore Clarvelo](https://clarvelo.com/index.md), an AI workshop facilitator for collaborative teams.