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| Criterion |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | ARID examines how well developers can work with a technical design. It focuses on a part of the system that can still be revised, between the architecture overview and the detailed specification. | 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 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 | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 h | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 30-60 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 2-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | Root causeQualityOperations | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |