Start, Stop, Continue

For every team, it's beneficial to take a break from time to time to look back, analyze the gathered experience and make changes that can improve different aspects of the teamwork.

If you have such a request, you should definitely try the Start, Stop, Continue exercise.

Due to its simplicity, it's suitable for all kinds of project teams.

Let's see how we can conduct such a meeting!

At the beginning of the meeting, draw three columns on the board and label them as Start, Stop, and Continue. Explain to the participants that there will be three main questions discussed in this meeting:

1. What should we start doing?

Actions that can improve processes, reduce losses, and positively affect how the team works.

2. What should we stop doing?

Things in the workflow that don't help the team achieve its goals should be stopped.

3. What should we continue doing?

Things that are already well-functioning should remain in the workflow to ensure success in the future.

Give participants 5-10 minutes to record their ideas on sticky notes that will be added to each column.

During the brainstorming session, the team members should keep their ideas secret to prevent group thinking and the influence of others.

When the time interval ends, participants add each of their ideas to the corresponding column.

Different questions can be used during idea generation to help the team break away from cookie-cutter thinking.

Start

• A new person has joined our project team. What new task could we assign them?
• Our budget has doubled. Where should we invest it?
• Good news, our client has extended the deadline. What can we add to surprise them?

Stop

• What is the one thing you will never do on your to-do list?
• If we had to lose someone from the team to meet our deadlines, what could we drop?
• What frustrates you?

Go On

• What tasks in this project bring you the most joy?
• What do we do that defines and advances our culture?
• What do our clients enjoy the most?

After the ideas have been posted on the common board, ask the participants to group the ideas by similar topics.

The more similarities you find in the ideas, the more important the topic is for the team. The clustering step helps to identify topics for the upcoming group discussion.

Give each team member several votes (3-5 depending on the size of the team and the number of ideas) to vote for the most essential ideas, in their opinion.

As an option, use Dot Voting when each participant leaves a dot on the sticker with a marker.

As a result, a list with priorities should be obtained according to the number of votes.

If voting using points was used, the team begins the discussion with the idea that it has received the highest number of votes. If not, the facilitator can choose the order of discussion.

To limit the conversation by time, you can use time boxes for the entire discussion (20-40 minutes) or time boxes for talking about each separate topic (5 or 10 minutes). The second option allows us to maintain the conversation's topic and move at a faster pace.

As the conversation progresses, record any actions that come out of the discussion to help the team create a plan of action for future improvements.

At the end of the discussion, the team should have a clear purpose of what they are going to Start, Stop and Continue doing in the future.

Each meeting should end with a specific action plan with dates and responsible people. Otherwise, it may be a waste of time.

If you are using this exercise with the team for the second time or more, make sure to track progress on the planned actions at the beginning of the meeting.