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| Criterion |  Product Strategy Lean Canvas |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  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 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 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. | 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 | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 1-4 h | 1-3 h | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 3-8 | 4-10 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Lean Canvas, Core Assumptions, Experiment Backlog | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | StartupLeanAssumptionsBusiness model | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |