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| Criterion |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Agile Sailboat Retrospective |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |  Agile Mad Sad Glad |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | When a team wants to read momentum, brakes, and risks together, it offers an easily understandable picture of the situation. It makes drive, obstacles, and headwind visible in the same picture. | An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable. | When a team's or workshop's mood needs to become readable, it structures emotional signals with little setup. It makes strain, relief, and sources of energy tangible. |
Complexitysame | Low | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | 15-45 min | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 | 4-12 | 1-3 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Sailboat Board, Risks, Improvement Actions | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | Emotion Board, Themes, Action Items |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | RetrospectiveTeamImprovement | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | RetrospectiveTeamReflection |