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| Criterion |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Barrier Analysis |  Engineering Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting |
|---|---|---|---|
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. | For a risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. | When systems fail unexpectedly, spontaneous attempts often produce more noise than insight. Hypothesis-driven Troubleshooting translates symptoms into testable assumptions and makes troubleshooting learnable. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-4 h | 2-4 h | 30-240 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | 2-6 | 1-6 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog | Hypothesis Log, Test Plan, Evidence Notes, Diagnosis Summary |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeSafetyIncident | TroubleshootingProblem solvingDiagnosis |
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