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| Criterion |  Facilitation Mind Mapping |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 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 disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | High | Medium |
Timedifferent | 15-45 min | 30-60 min | 2-8 h | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 1-10 | 2-8 | 2-8 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Mind Map, Topic Clusters, Open Questions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | BrainstormingIdeasMappingStructureFacilitation | Root causeQualityOperations | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |