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| Criterion |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Operations 8D Problem Solving |  Agile 4Ls Retrospective |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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 an acute quality or delivery problem, the method structures immediate protection and root cause work together. It keeps the situation stable while the actual cause is investigated cleanly. | 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 problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 1-6 Wochen | 45–75 min | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 | 4-10 | Team members involved | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | 8D Report, Containment Plan, Root Cause Evidence, Corrective Action Plan | 4Ls Board, Learning Themes, Improvement Actions | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | QualityProblem solvingRoot cause | RetrospectiveLearningReflectionTeam | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |