Read the raw retro notes below (post-its, Miro export, Slack debrief - whatever the team produced). Produce:
1. Themes: items mentioned by 3+ team members, with the underlying source named ('on-call rotation', 'design handoff timing', etc.). Not just labels - the cause.
2. Action items: each with a named owner and a 'try by' date. Do not list actions without owners; either find one in the input or flag 'no owner identified'.
3. Escalate up: only items that genuinely cannot be solved inside this team and have a named recipient at a higher level. Not a complaint dump.
4. Consciously drop: items from previous retros that nobody picked up. Mark each as 'drop unless someone advocates within 7 days.'
The raw notes:
{{retro_notes}}
Sprint retro synthesis
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Example output
Themes (mentioned by 3+ team members):
- Code review queue grew to 9-day average. Source: capacity drain from on-call rotation.
- Design handoffs feel rushed. Source: PRD finalized in same week as design start.
- Standups running 25+ minutes. Source: status updates that should be async.
Action items:
- Maya: experiment with 2-week PRD-to-design lag. Try for next sprint.
- Sarah: switch standups to async-first, sync only when blocked. Try for 2 weeks.
- Engineering: pair on code review during on-call weeks (J + K rotation).
Escalate up:
- On-call load is now affecting code review throughput. Worth raising with eng leadership - not solvable inside our team.
Consciously drop:
- The 'monthly architecture review' idea from last retro - never started, no clear owner. Drop unless someone advocates.
- The 'document our deploy process' item - already partially covered by the new runbook. Mark as done.
Common mistakes
Don't paste only your own notes - paste the whole team's raw input, including the parts you disagree with. The model's value is in finding patterns across voices, which it can't do if you've already filtered. Also: do not let the 'escalate up' section become a complaint dump. It should only contain items that genuinely cannot be solved inside the team and that have a named recipient. Otherwise it reads as venting and the recipients tune out.
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Why it works
Sprint retros produce the messiest, most valuable raw text in PM work - and the writeup almost always falls on the PM late on Friday. This prompt converts that. Paste the team's raw retro notes (post-its, Miro board exports, Slack debrief), get back a structured synthesis: themes (what came up across multiple voices), action items with owners, what to escalate up, what to consciously drop. The 'consciously drop' section matters - retros accumulate a backlog of half-actioned items that nobody owns, and explicitly dropping them is healthier than letting them rot. Run this within an hour of the retro and the synthesis is in the team channel before anyone has reread their notes. Tested cleanest on Claude Opus 4.7.