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| Criterion |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|
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 improvement options need to be sorted more finely than just start and stop, it brings observations into clear kinds of action. This makes visible what should be done more, less, newly, or continued. | 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 | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 2-8 h | 45-90 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 4-12 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.
