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| Criterion |  Facilitation Mind Mapping |  Operations Causal Factor Analysis |  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. | For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | 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 | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 15-45 min | 2-6 h | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-10 | 3-10 | 4-12 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Mind Map, Topic Clusters, Open Questions | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Idea pool, Theme clusters, Shortlist | Lotus Diagram, Idea Themes, Shortlist |
Tagsno overlap | BrainstormingIdeasMappingStructureFacilitation | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityWorkshopDivergence | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityDivergenceWorkshop |