The Elvis Retrospective is a retrospective format that helps you and your team think about what is going on in your team, so it is mostly helpful in generating data. Due to its creative and fun twist, it can help people to think a bit differently or open up more easy.
For the format you need a wall with 6 topics on which people can post sticky-notes (sounds familiar right?) Of course the topics are now all related to Elvis hits:
Always on my mind
What is always on your mind, or things that should always be on your mind.
A little less conversation
The stuff we are always talk about, but never take enough action on.
Now or never
This needs action right now, or should be dropped all together.
Blue suede shoes
Some things should not be stepped on. What should we treat extra careful?
Devil in disguise
Dangers are lurking. What are we missing?
Return to sender
Don’t listen to this or don’t do this.
To make the retro be more fun and get everybody into it, it is nice to draw an Elvis on your board, or print out a silhouette of Elvis and put that in the middle of your wall. For some extra spirit you can put on some Elvis music in the time that people enter or write their sticky notes.
This is also a good format to hold digitally, for example using a Jamboard or similar shared digital whiteboard.
Conclusion
I had a good time hosting this format, and it generated some good ideas. Reactions were quite positive.
After the creation of ideas, I used dot voting to find the most hot topics to discuss and come to actions for. But any other methods will do.