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| Criterion |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|
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. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 h | 45-60 min | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | Root causeQualityOperations |
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