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| Criterion |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Operations 5 Whys |  Operations Learning Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For a disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations. | 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. | For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 2-8 h | 45-90 min | 15-30 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 4-12 | 2-6 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Learning Review Notes, System Factors, Improvement Actions |
Tagsno overlap | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | LearningRetrospectiveIncidentOperations |