/cm:retro — Campaign / Sprint Retrospective

Structured post-mortem for campaigns, launches, or sprints.

What It Does

A deeper analysis than /cm:compound. While compound captures quick learnings, retro does a full post-mortem: what happened, why it happened, what to change. Best run after campaigns, launches, or sprint cycles.

Time Investment

20-30 minutes

Process

1. Set the Scope

• What are we reviewing? (Campaign name, sprint #, launch, experiment)
• What was the timeline? (Start → end)
• What was the original goal?
• What was the actual outcome?

2. Results vs. Expectations

Overall: Did we hit the goal? Why or why not?

3. What Worked (Keep Doing)

List things that went well. Be specific — not "content was good" but "the comparison blog post drove 340 signups at $2.40 CAC."

For each:

• What specifically worked?
• Why did it work?
• How can we do more of this?
• Can this be systematized?

4. What Didn't Work (Stop Doing)

List things that failed or underperformed. No blame — just facts.

For each:

• What happened?
• Why didn't it work? (Root cause, not surface)
• How much time/money was spent?
• Should we try again differently, or kill it?

5. What We'd Change (Start Doing)

Based on the above:

• What would we do differently if we ran this again?
• What new approach should we try?
• What process changes would improve execution?

6. Surprises & Insights

Things you didn't expect — both good and bad:

• Unexpected channel that worked
• Audience segment that responded differently
• Content format that surprised
• Timing or sequencing insight

7. Action Items

Concrete next steps:

8. Compound the Learnings

Run `/cm:compound` to document:

• Key insights worth keeping
• Patterns to remember
• Frameworks to reuse
• Data points for future decisions

Output

## Retro: [Campaign/Sprint Name] — [Date]

### Summary
[1-2 sentence summary of what happened]

### Scorecard
| Metric | Target | Actual | Verdict |
|--------|--------|--------|---------|
| ... | ... | ... | ... |

### Keep (What Worked)
1. ...
2. ...

### Stop (What Didn't Work)
1. ...
2. ...

### Start (What to Change)
1. ...
2. ...

### Key Insight
[The single most important thing we learned]

### Action Items
1. ...
2. ...

When to Run

• After every campaign ends
• At sprint boundaries (end of 2-week sprint)
• After product launches (1-2 weeks post-launch)
• After A/B tests conclude
• After any significant marketing initiative

Related Workflows

• /cm:compound — Quick learning capture (use for small tasks)
• /cm:sprint — Sprint planning (retro feeds into next sprint)
• /cm:weekly — Weekly review (smaller scope than retro)
• /cm:audit — Quarterly audit (bigger scope than retro)

Common Mistakes

• Skipping the retro (most common — and most costly)
• Making it about blame (it's about learning, not fault-finding)
• Not capturing action items (retro without actions is just venting)
• Doing it too late (memory fades — run within 1 week of campaign end)
• Not reading previous retros before planning new work