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| Criterion | ![]() Agile Starfish Retrospective | ![]() Systems Thinking CATWOE Analysis | ![]() Operations After-Action Review | ![]() Agile Sprint Retrospective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | CATWOE structures a problem from six viewpoints and prevents too narrow a view of the situation. Different experiences of the system become comparably discussable this way. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | 20-45 min | Up to 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; shorter Sprints are usually shorter |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 | 3-8 | 3-12 | Scrum Team |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | CATWOE Canvas, Root Definition, Stakeholder Perspectives, Constraints | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary | Improvement actions, Team agreements |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | Systems thinkingFramingStakeholders | LearningOperationsImprovement | RetrospectiveImprovementLearning |



