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| Criterion |  Agile Affinity Estimation |  Innovation Starbursting |  Agile Bucket System |  Innovation Lotus Blossom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When many tasks need to be classified quickly, it sorts them by perceived effort and similarity. It reduces the effort of fine-grained estimation for large volumes. | Helps clarify ideas, open questions, and testable next steps in concrete terms. It opens the thinking space, collects ideas, and leads to testable options. The result is captured as a star-shaped question map, question list, and assumption list. | When a large batch of work needs a fast, rough estimate, it sorts items into predefined size buckets. It sorts work by value, risk, and delivery ability. The result is captured as a Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, and Split Candidates. | When a central question feels too large, the method breaks it into neighboring topic fields with their own depth of ideation. It holds structure and openness at the same time, so adjacent perspectives don't get lost. This grows an idea space out of a core problem. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 30-90 min | 30-60 min | 30-90 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-12 | 3-10 | 3-12 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items | Star-Shaped Question Map, Question List, Assumption List | Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, Split Candidates | Lotus Diagram, Idea Themes, Shortlist |
Tagsno overlap | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | BrainstormingIdeationWorkshopDiscovery | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityDivergenceWorkshop |