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| Criterion |  Operations After-Action Review |  Agile Sprint Retrospective |  Operations Learning Review |  DevOps Blameless Postmortem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | 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. | After a project phase with mixed results, the method makes learning from the individual case reusable. It connects events, decisions, and systemic conditions into robust insights. | After an incident with damage or a near miss, the method creates a sober field for learning without assigning blame. It directs attention to the course of events, conditions, and effective countermeasures. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20-45 min | Up to 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; shorter Sprints are usually shorter | 1-3 h | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-12 | Scrum Team | 3-10 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary | Improvement actions, Team agreements | Learning Review Notes, System Factors, Improvement Actions | Postmortem Doc, Action Items, Timeline |
Tags1 shared | LearningOperationsImprovement | RetrospectiveImprovementLearning | LearningRetrospectiveIncidentOperations | Site Reliability EngineeringIncidentLearningReliability |