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| Criterion |  Engineering Fault Isolation |  Innovation TRIZ |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Engineering Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | In technical failures, the visible symptom often gets mixed up with the actual cause. Fault Isolation narrows the fault space and progressively reduces which part of the system is truly affected. | For technical contradictions or trade-offs, the method looks for solutions that resolve opposing requirements at the same time. It translates limits into an explicit picture of conflict that becomes workable. This produces not just compromises but more elegant principles. | When a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | When systems fail unexpectedly, spontaneous attempts often produce more noise than insight. Hypothesis-driven Troubleshooting translates symptoms into testable assumptions and makes troubleshooting learnable. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | High | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30-180 min | 1-4 h | 1-4 h | 30-240 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 2-8 | 3-8 | 1-6 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Fault Isolation Map, Test Log, Excluded Hypotheses, Narrowed Fault Area | Contradiction Statement, Inventive Principles, Solution Concepts | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Hypothesis Log, Test Plan, Evidence Notes, Diagnosis Summary |
Tagsno overlap | TroubleshootingDiagnosisEngineering | InnovationProblem solvingContradictionsCreativity | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | TroubleshootingProblem solvingDiagnosis |