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| Criterion | ![]() Agile Starfish Retrospective | ![]() Operations Learning Review | ![]() 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. | After a project phase with mixed results, the method makes learning from the individual case reusable. It connects events, decisions, and systemic conditions into robust insights. | 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 | 1-3 h | 20-45 min | Up to 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; shorter Sprints are usually shorter |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 | 3-10 | 3-12 | Scrum Team |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Learning Review Notes, System Factors, Improvement Actions | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary | Improvement actions, Team agreements |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | LearningRetrospectiveIncidentOperations | LearningOperationsImprovement | RetrospectiveImprovementLearning |



