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| Criterion |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Systems Thinking CATWOE Analysis |  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. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | Up to 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; shorter Sprints are usually shorter | 20-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 | 3-8 | Scrum Team | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | CATWOE Canvas, Root Definition, Stakeholder Perspectives, Constraints | Improvement actions, Team agreements | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | Systems thinkingFramingStakeholders | RetrospectiveImprovementLearning | LearningOperationsImprovement |