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| Criterion |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Operations Accountability Ladder |  Agile Sprint Retrospective |  Operations After-Action Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | With defensive reactions to problems, the method shifts the view from justification to ownership. It makes visible which reaction stage a person or team is currently stuck on. | 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 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 | 45-90 min | 20-45 min | Up to 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; shorter Sprints are usually shorter | 20-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 | 1-8 | Scrum Team | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Ownership Reflection, Action Commitment, Coaching Notes | Improvement actions, Team agreements | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | ResponsibilityLeadershipTeam | RetrospectiveImprovementLearning | LearningOperationsImprovement |