Hopes and Concerns retrospective template

Twenty minutes that surface what people want — and what they are quietly worried about.

Hopes and Concerns is a two-column exercise run at the start of something new: a project, a quarter, a reorganisation, a workshop, a team merge. Everyone writes what they hope will happen and what they are worried about, and the group works through both. It is often called "hopes and fears" — the same exercise, and "concerns" tends to get more honest cards from teams who feel "fears" overstates it.

Its value is timing. The worries that sink projects are usually known by somebody in week one and only said out loud in the post-mortem. This exercise moves that conversation to the front, when a concern is still cheap to act on. It takes 20–40 minutes and needs almost no facilitation experience.

Timebox

20–40 minutes

Team size

3–30 people

Cadence

Kick-offs, reorgs, new tools or processes, workshop openings

The Hopes and Concerns board

Hopes

If this goes as well as it possibly could, what does that look like for you?

  • We finish with a codebase the next team is not afraid of
  • I get to work on the data pipeline instead of only tickets
  • Decisions get made in the room instead of a week later by email
  • Customers actually notice the difference this quarter
  • We ship something we would show a friend
  • I stop being the only person who can deploy this

Concerns

What worries you? What could go wrong — and what would it cost us?

  • The deadline was set before anyone estimated the work
  • Two of us are on another project half the time and it is not accounted for
  • We are the third team to attempt this migration
  • Nobody has said what happens to the old system
  • Requirements will keep arriving after we have started building
  • This is the fourth new tool this year and the last two were abandoned

What would help

What would need to be true for the hopes to happen and the concerns not to? (Optional third column — the classic version stops at two.)

  • A named decision-maker for scope questions, available same day
  • Written capacity split for the two people on both projects
  • A short written post-mortem of the two previous migration attempts
  • A date by which the old system is switched off, published now
  • A weekly 15-minute checkpoint instead of ad-hoc escalations

How to run the hopes and concerns exercise

  1. 1

    Frame what is under discussion (3 min)

    State exactly what the exercise covers — this project, this quarter, this reorg — and be explicit about what is already decided and what is genuinely open. Nothing burns trust faster than collecting concerns about something that cannot change.

  2. 2

    Silent writing (6–8 min)

    Everyone writes at least one hope and one concern, cards hidden. Anonymous input matters more here than in a normal retrospective: the useful concerns are often about decisions made by people in the room.

  3. 3

    Reveal and group (5 min)

    Reveal everything at once and cluster duplicates. A concern that five people wrote independently is a different fact from one person’s worry — the clustering is what makes that visible.

  4. 4

    Vote on concerns (3 min)

    For groups over six, dot-vote so the discussion goes where the weight is. Smaller groups can just walk the clusters in order of size.

  5. 5

    Close each top concern (10–15 min)

    Give every discussed concern one of three endings: we will act on it (owner and date), we accept it and here is why, or we do not know yet and here is who will find out by when. Say the ending out loud and write it on the board.

  6. 6

    Come back to the hopes (5 min)

    Pick the hopes the team can actually influence and turn one or two into commitments. Save the board — rereading it at the mid-point or the retro is the cheapest calibration you will ever get.

Hopes and concerns examples for a project kick-off

Hopes

  • We agree the scope once and it holds
  • Design and engineering start in the same week for once
  • We can demo something real by the end of month one

Concerns

  • The date came from a customer promise, not from an estimate
  • The integration partner has not confirmed their timeline
  • We inherit a codebase nobody currently working here wrote

What would help

  • A written scope doc with an owner who can say no
  • A named contact at the partner and a weekly check-in
  • Two days budgeted for a codebase walkthrough before estimating

Hopes and concerns examples for a reorg or team change

During a reorganisation people are usually worried about the same three things — belonging, work, and manager — and rarely asked about any of them. Running this exercise early is often the single highest-value 30 minutes a new manager can spend.

Hopes

  • I keep working on the parts of the product I know
  • The new structure means fewer hand-offs, not more
  • We get clarity in weeks, not months

Concerns

  • Nobody has said who owns the services my team currently runs
  • My growth conversation restarts from zero with a new manager
  • The team splits and the on-call rota becomes unworkable

What would help

  • A published service-ownership map, even a draft one
  • Written performance context handed to the new manager
  • A decision on the rota before the split, not after

Hopes and concerns examples for a workshop or offsite opening

Used as an opener, the exercise doubles as agenda-setting: the hopes tell you what people came for, and the concerns tell you what will distract them if you ignore it.

Hopes

  • We leave with decisions, not another document
  • Everyone speaks, not just the loudest three
  • We spend the time on strategy, not status updates

Concerns

  • The agenda has no time for the topic everyone cares about
  • Remote participants will be second-class again
  • We agree things here that quietly evaporate next week

What would help

  • Thirty minutes of the agenda left deliberately unallocated
  • One facilitator watching the remote channel all day
  • Every decision leaves with an owner and a review date

Best for

  • Project and quarter kick-offs, before commitments harden
  • Reorganisations, team merges, and leadership changes
  • Workshops and offsites — as an opening that sets the agenda
  • Rolling out a new tool or process people did not ask for

Facilitation tips

Never collect a concern you will not close

Asking people to name worries and then moving on is worse than not asking. Every discussed concern needs an ending — acted on, accepted with a reason, or assigned to someone who will find out. "Accepted" is a legitimate answer; silence is not.

Say what is not up for debate

If the date is fixed or the reorg is decided, say so in the framing. People will still raise concerns about it — they just switch from arguing the decision to mitigating its effects, which is the useful conversation.

Keep it anonymous when power is in the room

With a sponsor, a new manager, or an exec present, collect cards anonymously and read them aloud yourself. The concerns worth hearing are usually the ones with a career cost attached.

Reread the board later

Bring the original board to the mid-project check-in or the first retrospective. Seeing which concerns came true, which never materialised, and which the team defused is the fastest way to calibrate a team’s instincts.

Variations

Hopes and fears

The same exercise under its more common name. "Fears" pulls stronger emotional responses, which suits high-stakes change; "concerns" gets more cards from teams who would feel dramatic saying they are afraid.

Two columns only

The classic version stops at hopes and concerns and handles remedies in discussion. Faster, and better when the group is large or the session is a workshop opener rather than a planning session.

Hopes, concerns, and asks

Replace the third column with direct asks addressed to a sponsor or leadership in the room. Useful in kick-offs where the main blockers are decisions the team cannot make itself.

Async pre-read

Collect hopes and concerns on a board over two days, cluster them beforehand, and use the live meeting only to close the top clusters. Cuts the session to 20 minutes and works across time zones.

Frequently asked questions

What is the hopes and concerns exercise?+

It is a two-column exercise where everyone writes what they hope will happen and what they are worried about, usually at the start of a project, quarter, reorganisation, or workshop. The group clusters the cards and gives each significant concern an explicit ending: an action with an owner, an accepted risk, or an open question with a name and a date on it.

Is it hopes and concerns or hopes and fears?+

They are the same exercise. "Hopes and fears" is the more common name in workshops and change management; "hopes and concerns" is the softer wording many teams prefer, because it collects the same information without asking people to describe themselves as afraid.

How is it different from a retrospective?+

A retrospective looks back at work that happened; hopes and concerns looks forward at work that has not started. It is the lightest forward-looking format — a futurespective covers the same ground in more structured detail when you have a full hour.

What do you do with the concerns afterwards?+

Close each one visibly. Concerns the team can act on become action items with an owner and a date. Concerns outside the team’s control are either accepted out loud with a reason, or turned into a question assigned to whoever can answer it. Keep the board and revisit it mid-project.

How long does the exercise take?+

Twenty minutes for a small team as a workshop opener, 30–40 minutes when you want every top concern closed with an owner. Large groups need more clustering time but no more writing time.

Run Hopes and Concerns online in FocusRetro

Start a blank board, name the columns Hopes / Concerns / What would help, and invite the team with a link — then run the phases with timers, hidden cards, and blind voting. Free plan available at focusretro.com.

Start a board free

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Related guides

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Retrospective timebox calculator

How long Hopes and Concerns should run for your sprint length and team size, split across the five phases.

Icebreaker and check-in questions

Openers for the first two minutes of a Hopes and Concerns session, sorted by situation.