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| Criterion |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Agile Affinity Estimation |  Agile Bucket System |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For a disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations. | 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. | 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 large batch of work needs a fast, rough estimate, it sorts items into predefined size buckets. It sorts work by value, risk, and delivery ability. The result is captured as a Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, and Split Candidates. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 2-8 h | 1-4 h | 30-90 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-8 | 3-12 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items | Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, Split Candidates |
Tagsno overlap | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing |