Technical and non-technical factors influence productivity in software development teams, with technical aspects being more commonly considered. However, non-technical ones hold significant sway in software development, especially within agile contexts. Achieving productivity within a software development team involves enhancing how tasks are executed. In agile work environments, improvement actions are carried out through retrospectives. However, effectively addressing retrospectives as a key event for software process improvement poses a challenge for teams, mainly when aiming to enhance productivity. This study provides a useful tool for conducting retrospectives, primarily focusing on analyzing non-technical factors that influence the productivity of software development teams. To achieve that goal, the proposal is to employ gamification elements by designing the tool based on an instrument design method and a list of non-technical factors. The most relevant outcome of this work is a technique called Ga-starfish, intended for conducting a retrospective based on gamification elements for agile software development environments. The proposed technique is a valuable alternative to improve the software development team’s productivity, which is highly demanded given the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.