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| Criterion |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Agile Affinity Estimation |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. | 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 problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | For a process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 30-60 min | 30-90 min | 1-4 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-12 | 3-8 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeQualityOperations | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause |