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| Criterion |  Engineering Kanban |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Root Cause Tree Analysis |  Operations Barrier Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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 problem with several suspected causes, the method builds a causal structure instead of a mere list. It makes visible how causes connect and where the strongest points of leverage lie. | For a risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | Ongoing | 1-4 h | 1-3 h | 2-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-12 | 3-8 | 2-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Cause Tree, Evidence Notes, Countermeasures | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | FlowVisual managementDelivery | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeTreeIncidentQuality | Root causeSafetyIncident |