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| Criterion |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |  Agile Sprint Retrospective |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Operations After-Action Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable. | When a sprint is over and friction shouldn't simply be carried forward, it opens the view onto collaboration and patterns. It creates space to see causes and changes together. | 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 | 15-45 min | Up to 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; shorter Sprints are usually shorter | 45-90 min | 20-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-3 | Scrum Team | 4-12 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | Improvement actions, Team agreements | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | RetrospectiveImprovementLearning | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | LearningOperationsImprovement |