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| Criterion | ![]() Operations Causal Factor Analysis | ![]() Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree | ![]() Agile Starfish Retrospective | ![]() Agile Start Stop Continue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. | 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 deliberately adjust its working behavior, it makes habits visible and assessable. It focuses on concrete changes instead of diffuse mood. |
Complexitydifferent | High | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 2-6 h | 2-6 h | 45-90 min | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 | 3-8 | 4-12 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Start Stop Continue Board, Improvement Actions |
Tagsno overlap | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | RetrospectiveImprovementTeamReflection |



