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| Criterion | ![]() Systems Thinking Rich Picture | ![]() Operations Root Cause Analysis | ![]() Operations Root Cause Tree Analysis | ![]() Operations Scatter Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | A Rich Picture brings an unclear situation onto a shared drawing. It captures actors, tensions, information flows, and blind spots before the team jumps to solutions too early. | 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. | For a problem with several suspected causes, the method builds a causal structure instead of a mere list. It makes visible how causes connect and where the strongest points of leverage lie. | When the question is whether two measures are related, the method makes patterns in the data picture visible. It separates felt correlations from relationships that actually show up in the data. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 30-90 min | 1-4 h | 1-3 h | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-10 | 3-8 | 2-8 | 1-4 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Rich Picture, Problem Framing Notes | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Cause Tree, Evidence Notes, Countermeasures | Scatter Plot, Korrelationsnotiz, Hypothesenliste |
Tagsno overlap | Systems thinkingSoft systemsFramingVisualization | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeTreeIncidentQuality | Root causeQualityVisualization |



