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| Criterion |  Engineering Kanban |  Operations A3 Problem Solving |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When work sits in too many parallel streams, throughput suffers and no one sees the bottlenecks. Kanban makes the flow of work visible and limits overload so a system becomes calmer and more predictable. | For a complex deviation with several people involved, the method bundles problem, analysis, and decision onto one page. It creates a shared working space where causes, countermeasures, and follow-up fit together. | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. | When delivery work dissolves into wait times, handoffs, and hidden effort, Value Stream Mapping makes the actual flow visible. The method exposes bottlenecks, idle time, and feedback loops so lead time and improvement levers become tangible. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | Ongoing | 45-90 min | 45-120 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-12 | 2-5 | 2-8 | 4-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics | A3 Report, Action Plan, Root Cause Analysis | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list |
Tagsno overlap | FlowVisual managementDelivery | LeanProblem solvingCoachingOperations | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | LeanFlowWasteDelivery |