4 Ls retrospective template
Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For — feelings, facts, and gaps in one pass.
Also known as: 4Ls retrospective, Four Ls, Liked Learned Lacked Longed For.
The 4 Ls separate what the team enjoyed from what it learned, what it was missing, and what it wished for. Splitting "Lacked" from "Longed For" is the useful part: the first surfaces concrete gaps you can close, the second surfaces ambitions you may not be able to, and conflating them is how teams end up with an action list nobody can deliver.
The columns, and what goes in each
- Liked
- What did you genuinely enjoy about how this went?
- Learned
- What do you know now that you did not know at the start?
- Lacked
- What was missing that you needed — information, tools, time, people?
- Longed For
- What did you wish for, even if it was never realistically available?
When to use the 4 Ls retrospective
- The end of a project, milestone, or quarter rather than a single sprint
- A team that has learned a lot quickly — onboarding a new domain, a new stack, a new client
- Sessions where you want to capture knowledge, not just process complaints
How to run a 4 Ls retrospective
- Write silently for seven to eight minutes; four columns need a little more time than three.
- Read Liked and Learned first, so the group hears what it gained before what it missed.
- Group Lacked and Longed For together during discussion — they often name the same gap.
- Turn the top Lacked cards into actions; record Longed For items as things to revisit, not commitments.
Run this retrospective in RetroCanvas
4 Ls is built in — pick it when you create a board, or set it to recur automatically every sprint. Free, with no credit card required.