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| Criterion |  Product Strategy Lean Canvas |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When an early product bet still has too many open points, it brings target group, problem, and assumptions into a single view. It condenses the idea so core risks become nameable. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | When a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. | 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 | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 45-60 min | 30-60 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 2-8 | 2-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Lean Canvas, Core Assumptions, Experiment Backlog | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | StartupLeanAssumptionsBusiness model | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | Root causeQualityOperations | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |