The 4Ls Retrospective: Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For

What are the 4Ls?

The team sorts reflections into four columns:

• Liked — what worked well and gave energy.
• Learned — new insights, skills or knowledge gained during the period.
• Lacked — what was missing that the team needed (and felt the absence of).
• Longed For — what the team wishes it had going forward.

The classic confusion is Lacked vs Longed For: Lacked is about the period you are reviewing ("we lacked a staging environment"), Longed For is about the future ("we long for automated staging deploys"). One diagnoses, the other aspires.

Example notes for each L

Liked: "The pairing rotation — I learned the billing module without a handover meeting." / "How fast support replied during launch week."

Learned: "Load testing early would have caught the timeout issue in week one." / "Users care more about export than we assumed."

Lacked: "We lacked a single owner for the API contract; three teams guessed." / "No quiet time — every afternoon was meetings."

Longed For: "A sandbox with production-like data." / "One meeting-free day a week." / "A dashboard the whole team can read at a glance."

How to run a 4Ls retrospective: step by step (~45 minutes)

1. Frame the period (5 min) — Name exactly what you're reviewing (a release, a quarter). A longer horizon is the point: put a simple timeline of milestones on the board to jog memories.
2. Silent writing (10 min) — Everyone writes in all four columns. Prompt quiet rooms with the timeline: "What surprised you in week three?"
3. Group and read (10 min) — Cluster similar notes, read aloud, and keep the team's own wording for cluster names.
4. Discuss (12 min) — Start with Learned: which lessons change how you'll work next period? Then Lacked/Longed For: which gaps are worth an action? Vote if you need to prioritize.
5. Actions (8 min) — End with 1–3 actions with owners and dates. Longed For items often become the best experiments: pick one wish and pilot it.

When to use the 4Ls

• End of a release, quarter or project — any longer horizon where learning matters.
• A team that runs sprint retros well and wants a deeper, reflective session.
• Onboarding-heavy periods, where Learned and Lacked surface what newcomers saw with fresh eyes.

For a quick single-sprint retro, Start Stop Continue is usually faster; for future-risk focus, try Sailboat.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Mixing up Lacked and Longed For until the columns blur. Restate the difference before writing starts.
• Skipping Learned. It's the column that turns a retro into organizational memory — protect its discussion time.
• Reviewing too long a period with no timeline. Memory fades; milestones on the board fix it.
• Ending in wishes. Longed For is a starting point: convert at least one wish into a small, owned experiment.

Frequently asked questions