The short version. Start a retro for your team, write privately, reveal, group, vote and discuss. Turn what you agree into Jira issues. Next time, the retro opens by reviewing them.
1. Start a retro
Open Retrospectives in the project's navigation and fill in New retro:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Team | Each retro belongs to a team. Actions a team leaves open come back at the start of that team's next retro, so two teams sharing a project never mix theirs. |
| Columns | Went well / To improve / Ideas; Start / Stop / Continue; Mad / Sad / Glad; 4 Ls; or your own (up to six). |
| Sprint | Optional: tags the retro with the sprint it looks back on. |
| Anonymous cards | On by default. See what it means. |
| Votes per person | 1 to 10, default 3. A person may put several votes on one card. |
| Who can open it | Only the people I add (default) or everyone who can see this project. Moderators can always open it. |
2. The steps
A moderator moves the retro from one step to the next, and can make anyone present a co-moderator. The retro's creator always stays one.
- Review actions, only when the team has actions still open: each shows its live status in Jira and can be marked done or dismissed.
- Write. Everyone adds cards to the columns. Only you see your cards, and you can edit or delete them until the reveal.
- Reveal and group. All cards appear at once, in random order. Moderators group cards that say the same thing; each card keeps its own words.
- Vote. Everyone spends their votes. Nobody sees totals until the next step.
- Discuss. Cards are sorted by votes. Moderators add actions and turn them into Jira issues.
End retro closes it. A 5-minute timer is available to moderators at any step.
3. What "anonymous" means here
- An anonymous card is stored without its author. While the retro is open, each card carries its own code that lets its writer edit it. Two cards from the same person share nothing.
- While people write and vote, the app shows no counts and sends no update when someone adds a card or a vote, and there is no "who has finished". Participants do see who is present. A retro holds at most 300 cards, so someone who fills it to the limit could notice others adding.
- Cards are revealed in random order, never in the order they were written, and carry no time.
- When the retro ends, the edit codes, every individual vote and the retro's secret are deleted. The cards, their groups and the vote totals stay. After 14 days an open retro becomes eligible for automatic closure, which an hourly job carries out.
- A retro ended before its cards were revealed deletes them: nobody saw them, and ending must not show them.
What no app can promise. In a team of three, writing style or content can give an author away. The app makes sure the link is not stored and not shown; it cannot stop people guessing. While a retro is open, the app itself must be able to tell you your own cards, so it can; it never shows or logs that link, and it is deleted when the retro ends.
4. Actions and Jira issues
- Create issue creates it as you, straight from your browser: Jira applies your permissions, the issue type and its required fields. Only the action's own text goes to Jira, never the cards.
- Or link an existing issue by its key.
- If Jira's answer is lost (a closed tab, a network error), the action shows Check in Jira. The app never tries to create it again on its own: Check again looks for the issue, or you link it, or confirm it wasn't created.
- Open actions come back at the team's next retro with their live status, until someone marks them done or dismisses them.
5. Who can do what
- Open a retro: the people it was shared with, or everyone who can browse the project, and always its moderators. Jira access to the project is checked too.
- Moderate: move between steps, group, add and settle actions, end the retro.
- Linked issues show only to people Jira lets see them; others see "you don't have access to it".
- Ending never needs a licence, so a lapsed subscription can never keep a team's authorship data alive.
6. Exporting results
From the Discuss step on, and after the retro ends, Export results gives Markdown to paste into Confluence and a CSV that opens in Excel. An anonymous retro's export has no author column. Linked issues you cannot see appear as (restricted).
7. Support
Support is handled by the developer who builds the app, in English and Spanish, Monday to Friday, 09:00–18:00 Central European Time, excluding Spanish public holidays.
Raise a request on the support portal, or email soporte@vantelia.es. Please don't include card text in support requests.