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| Criterion | ![]() Agile Sprint Retrospective | ![]() Team Design Team Cognitive Load Assessment | ![]() Operations After-Action Review | ![]() Agile 4Ls Retrospective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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 a team juggles too many domains, systems, or handoffs, it measures mental overload as an organizational problem. It clarifies responsibility, interaction, and load between teams. The result is captured as a cognitive-load profile and action list. | 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 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | Up to 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; shorter Sprints are usually shorter | 60-90 min | 20-45 min | 45–75 min |
Participantsdifferent | Scrum Team | 3-12 | 3-12 | Team members involved |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Improvement actions, Team agreements | Cognitive Load Profile, Action List | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary | 4Ls Board, Learning Themes, Improvement Actions |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementLearning | TeamComplexityImprovementDiagnosis | LearningOperationsImprovement | RetrospectiveLearningReflectionTeam |



