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| Criterion | ![]() Agile Starfish Retrospective | ![]() Agile Sailboat Retrospective | ![]() Operations Learning Review | ![]() 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. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | 1-3 h | 20-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 | 4-12 | 3-10 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Sailboat Board, Risks, Improvement Actions | Learning Review Notes, System Factors, Improvement Actions | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | RetrospectiveTeamImprovement | LearningRetrospectiveIncidentOperations | LearningOperationsImprovement |



