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| Criterion | ![]() Agile 4Ls Retrospective | ![]() Agile Sailboat Retrospective | ![]() Agile Starfish Retrospective | ![]() Operations After-Action Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a sprint should not only be assessed but also learned from, it captures experience in clear learning categories. It records what worked, what's missing, and what should run differently next time. | When a team wants to read momentum, brakes, and risks together, it offers an easily understandable picture of the situation. It makes drive, obstacles, and headwind visible in the same picture. | When improvement options need to be sorted more finely than just start and stop, it brings observations into clear kinds of action. This makes visible what should be done more, less, newly, or continued. | After missions or project phases with unclear outcomes, the method makes visible what actually happened and what can be learned from it. It separates course, effect, and causes so experience turns into solid improvement. |
Complexitysame | Low | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 45–75 min | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | 20-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | Team members involved | 4-12 | 4-12 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | 4Ls Board, Learning Themes, Improvement Actions | Sailboat Board, Risks, Improvement Actions | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveLearningReflectionTeam | RetrospectiveTeamImprovement | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | LearningOperationsImprovement |



