Drop
Things the team should stop doing entirely. Not tune, not reduce: stop. The hardest column to fill honestly, which is why it goes first and why the cards are hidden while it is written.
What should we stop doing entirely?
Drop, Add, Keep, Improve: a retro that ends in decisions.
Four columns, each one a verb. DAKI works because every card is already a proposal — nobody has to translate a feeling into a change afterwards, the column did that when the card was written.
- Ready board, no setup
- Anonymous while writing
- Guests join without an account
How it works
- Step 1
Write into the four columns
Set a timer and let everyone write at once. Cards stay hidden while people think, so a bold Drop does not get softened by watching the room.
- Step 2
Reveal and react
The facilitator flips the board. Everyone marks agree, disagree or not sure on each card, and the cards reorder by how strongly the room responded.
- Step 3
Turn Drop and Add into owned actions
Those two columns are where the decisions are. Give each one a name and a date before the call ends; Keep and Improve become the working agreement.
The four columns, and what each is really asking
Add
Practices, tools or habits the team does not have and should. Keep it to things the team can actually start next sprint — an Add that needs a budget approval is a wish, not a card.
What should we start doing?
Keep
What is working and must be protected. Teams skip this column when they are tired, and then quietly drop the thing that was holding everything else up.
What is working and should stay?
Improve
What works but could work better. This is the difference between DAKI and Start-Stop-Continue: a middle ground for things that are not broken and not finished either.
What works, but could work better?
Frequently asked questions
What does DAKI stand for?
Drop, Add, Keep, Improve. Each column is an action the team can take, so a finished board reads as a plan rather than a list of feelings.
When should we use DAKI instead of Start, Stop, Continue?
When the team already broadly works and the problem is tuning rather than overhaul. Start-Stop-Continue has no place for "this is fine but could be better", so those cards end up in Continue and never change anything. DAKI gives them a column of their own.
What is the difference between Drop and Improve?
Drop means the practice should not exist at all. Improve means keep it but change how it is done. If the team argues over which column a card belongs in, that argument is usually the most useful part of the retro.
Are the cards anonymous?
While the team is writing, you can only see your own cards; everyone else's are hidden until the facilitator reveals the board, and cards are never labelled with an author afterwards. The full picture of what is and is not hidden is on the anonymous retrospectives page.
How long does a DAKI retrospective take?
About 45 minutes for a team of six: ten to write, five to reveal and react, and the rest on the top-voted cards and the actions that come out of them. The writing timer keeps the first part honest.
Do participants need an account?
No. Share the link, everyone joins with a display name. An account is only needed to keep history or use a permanent team room.