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Grzegorz Pisarczyk
Your team just finished the quarter. You gather for a retro. Someone opens the start/stop/continue board. Everyone adds sticky notes. You cluster similar ideas, vote on a few priorities, and commit to action.
Three weeks later, nothing has changed.
The problem isn't your team's commitment. It's your diagnosis.
Standard retros treat every problem as equal. But not all problems are equal. Some are symptoms. Some are root causes. And if you fix symptoms first, the root cause just produces new symptoms.
Here's a different approach: the three-board retro mapped to team dysfunctions. It takes longer. It's less comfortable. And it actually works.
The Method: Three Boards, One Diagnosis
Most retros use one board and cluster by similarity. This method uses three boards and clusters by root cause.
Board 1: Project and Goals What worked or didn't work in the actual work? Deliverables, timelines, scope, quality, stakeholder management. The substance of what you were trying to achieve.
Board 2: Ways of Working How did you work together? Meetings, tools, documentation, knowledge sharing, communication channels. The infrastructure of collaboration.
Board 3: Team Collaboration How did the team function as a team? Trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, focus on results. The dynamics beneath the work.
Each team member adds issues to all three boards. They do this before the workshop to give them space to think it over.
Then you map those issues onto Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team pyramid:
- Absence of Trust (foundation)
- Fear of Conflict
- Lack of Commitment
- Avoidance of Accountability
- Inattention to Results (top)
Some clusters are purely technical - a missing tool, a broken process, lack of resources. But most have roots in team dysfunctions.
And here's what teams discover: the problem they want to fix is rarely the problem they need to fix first.
The Story: When the Team Wanted to Fix the Wrong Thing
Last week I facilitated this retro with a project team developing a new service. They'd just finished their quarterly OKR review. Progress was slow. Energy was low.
We ran the three boards. Clustered the issues. Ended up with 9 distinct clusters.
The team was certain that their biggest problems were: “lack of rhythm and progress” and “task lists over shared outcomes”.
During this quarter everyone was grinding through their own task-lists but missing the Key Results. When someone made a decision, that person ended up implementing it alone. The rest of the team “didn’t have time” or “had other important things to take care of”.
So for next quarter the team wanted to fix their execution cadence. Build a better progress-tracking system. Create more accountability for getting work done.
Then we mapped the clusters to the pyramid.
Here's what appeared:
The problem they wanted to solve - “Task lists over shared outcomes” - sat two levels above the root cause.
The root cause: lack of commitment to decisions.
During the last quarter, some decisions were postponed for weeks. When decisions were being made, not everyone was buying in. So people would nod in the meeting, then revert to their own priorities. No one felt safe challenging a decision, so misalignment stayed hidden. Some decisions were ambiguous enough that opting out was easy.
Result: decision-makers were alone. Accountability was impossible. Progress stalled.
You can't build accountability when commitment is missing.
The foundation wasn't solid. Any accountability system they built would crack under the same pressure.
Once team members saw the pyramid, they decided to address challenges with commitment first. During the workshop they created a simple decision-making process that forces clarity, explicit buy-in, and gives opportunity to voice opinions before the decision closes.
The next steps were to test the process and and adjust it quickly if something is still not working.
How to Run This Retro: Step by Step
Time needed: 3-4 hours total
Step 0: Pre-work (async, before the workshop)
Set up three boards in Miro: Project/Goals, Ways of Working, Team Collaboration. [Link to Miro template]
Ask team members to add issues to all three boards before the session. Give them 2-3 days. No discussion yet. Just capture what didn't work or what could be better.
Why pre-work matters:
This isn't just time-saving. It changes the quality of thinking.
When people add stickies live in a workshop, they write fast to "complete the task." When they have days to reflect, they write what actually matters. They start unconsciously processing root causes before you even meet.
As facilitator, you can cluster issues in advance and prepare potential cluster names. You'll still validate everything with the team, but you've done the heavy lifting. This turns a 2-hour clustering exercise into a 45-minute validation conversation.
Step 1: Opening (15-30 min)
Set context. Review the agenda. Discuss what the team wants to get from this session. Get alignment on why you're here.
Step 2: Review issues and clusters (45-60 min)
Walk through the pre-clustered issues together. Ask for clarification on anything unclear. Invite the team to move stickies between clusters if something belongs elsewhere. Give space to add missing issues.
The team validates or adjusts cluster names. They must agree on each name. This is where shared understanding emerges.
Step 3: Refresh the Lencioni model (15 min)
Before mapping, ask different team members to explain each dysfunction level in their own words:
- Absence of Trust
- Fear of Conflict
- Lack of Commitment
- Avoidance of Accountability
- Inattention to Results
This isn't lecturing. It's building shared understanding. When everyone can articulate the model, mapping clusters becomes obvious instead of confusing.
Step 4: Map clusters to the pyramid (15 min)
Place each cluster name on the pyramid. Which dysfunction does this connect to? If the refresh went well, this moves quickly. Some clusters won't map (technical fixes - note them separately).
Step 5: Choose the lowest dysfunction (10 min or less)
Look at the pyramid. What's broken at the foundation? That's what you address first. If the mapping is clear, this decision is fast.
Step 6: Action learning session (60-90 min)
Use an action learning format to deeply define the chosen problem and design a solution the team can test immediately. This is where breakthroughs happen.
Step 7: Create action items (30 min)
What specifically will we do? Who owns it? By when? Make commitments concrete before leaving the room.
Facilitation Tips: Hold the Discomfort
Give the team a chance to find their own answers.
Your job as facilitator isn't to diagnose for them. It's to hold the space while they diagnose themselves. Ask questions. Reflect what you hear. Let them struggle toward the insight.
When they name their own problem, they own the solution.
Don't rescue the team from uncomfortable silence.
If the team goes quiet during action learning session, resist the urge to fill the gap. They're on the edge of a breakthrough. Hold them in that discomfort. Don't let them escape into small talk or premature solutions.
Uncomfortable silence is a sign they're processing something important.
Why This Works When Standard Retros Don't
Standard retros assume all problems are equal and solvable in parallel. Add three action items to the backlog and move on.
But teams are systems. Dysfunction at one level makes it impossible to solve problems at higher levels.
If trust is broken, you can't have productive conflict. If conflict is avoided, you can't get real commitment. If commitment is missing, accountability is performative. If accountability is weak, focus on results becomes individual, not collective.
Lencioni's pyramid forces you to work from the foundation up.
This method makes that diagnosis visible. The team sees the pyramid. They see where their issues cluster. They see what they've been trying to fix and where the real leverage is.
And they choose differently.
Try It With Your Team
Run this at your next OKR retro. Use the three boards. Cluster everything together. Map to the pyramid. Choose the lowest dysfunction.
I've created a Miro template to help you get started. [Link to template]
The problems your team complains about are rarely the problems you need to fix first.
But once you see the foundation, the choice becomes obvious.
Grzegorz Pisarczyk
Cofounder of Leave a Mark
Grzegorz helps others to grow, so that they can excel and leave a mark.
He focuses on strategy and team development. Applying his 15 year long experience in facilitating group process and managing change.