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| Criterion |  Facilitation Mind Mapping |  Agile Affinity Estimation |  Innovation Brainstorming |  Innovation Lotus Blossom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a topic is still unclear and too many thoughts surface at once, Mind Mapping creates an open surface for ordering them. It makes connections, subtopics, and starting points visible without fixing them too early. | 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 team faces an open question with many obvious directions, the method first creates breadth instead of premature commitment. It separates idea flow from evaluation and makes lines of thought visible, creating a pool for selection and further development. | When a central question feels too large, the method breaks it into neighboring topic fields with their own depth of ideation. It holds structure and openness at the same time, so adjacent perspectives don't get lost. This grows an idea space out of a core problem. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 15-45 min | 30-90 min | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-10 | 3-12 | 4-12 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Mind Map, Topic Clusters, Open Questions | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items | Idea pool, Theme clusters, Shortlist | Lotus Diagram, Idea Themes, Shortlist |
Tagsno overlap | BrainstormingIdeasMappingStructureFacilitation | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityWorkshopDivergence | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityDivergenceWorkshop |