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| Criterion |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Product Discovery Experiment Canvas |  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. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. | When experiments become unreadable after the fact, it arranges hypothesis, signal, and learning goal on a single canvas. It separates problem, assumption, solution, and evidence. The result is captured as a Completed Experiment Canvas and a Success Metric. | 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 | Low | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 30-60 min | 45-90 min | 30-60 min | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 2-8 | 1-5 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Completed Experiment Canvas, Success Metric | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeQualityOperations | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryHypothesis | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause |