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| Criterion |  DevOps Incident Command |  Operations After-Action Review |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | During an acute incident with several people involved, the method creates a clear leadership and communication structure. It reduces chaos when fast coordination and clean situational awareness are both needed at once. | After missions or project phases with unclear outcomes, the method makes visible what actually happened and what can be learned from it. It separates course, effect, and causes so experience turns into solid improvement. | 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 single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | As needed | 20-45 min | 1-4 h | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-15 | 3-12 | 3-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Incident Log, Action Tracker, Stakeholder Updates | Lessons learned, Action items, Event summary | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | IncidentOperationsReliability | LearningOperationsImprovement | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |