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| Criterion |  Systems Thinking Evaporating Cloud |  Facilitation Stakeholder Mapping |  Agile Affinity Estimation |  Agile Bucket System |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | The method makes visible why two seemingly incompatible demands arise and which assumption must be tested to resolve the conflict. | When an initiative depends on many people, interests, and power dynamics, Stakeholder Mapping systematically orders the environment. It shows who influences, who is affected, and where relationship management or safeguarding matters first. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 60-120 min | 60–90 min | 30-90 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 2-8 | 3-12 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Conflict Cloud, Assumption List, Breakthrough Ideas, Next Experiments | Stakeholder Map, Engagement Plan, Risk Notes | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items | Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, Split Candidates |
Tagsno overlap | Theory of ConstraintsAssumptionsSystems thinking | StakeholdersAlignmentFacilitationChange | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing |