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| Criterion | ![]() Agile Start Stop Continue | ![]() Architecture Architecture Decision Record | ![]() Agile Mad Sad Glad | ![]() Agile Starfish Retrospective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a team wants to deliberately adjust its working behavior, it makes habits visible and assessable. It focuses on concrete changes instead of diffuse mood. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitysame | Low | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 30-60 min | 15-45 min | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-12 | 1-3 | 3-10 | 4-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Start Stop Continue Board, Improvement Actions | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | Emotion Board, Themes, Action Items | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments |
Tagsno overlap | RetrospectiveImprovementTeamReflection | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | RetrospectiveTeamReflection | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam |



