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| Criterion |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  Innovation Brainstorming |  Innovation Lotus Blossom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability. | When a team faces an open question with many obvious directions, the method first creates breadth instead of premature commitment. It separates idea flow from evaluation and makes lines of thought visible, creating a pool for selection and further development. | When a central question feels too large, the method breaks it into neighboring topic fields with their own depth of ideation. It holds structure and openness at the same time, so adjacent perspectives don't get lost. This grows an idea space out of a core problem. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 h | 2-6 h | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | 3-10 | 4-12 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Idea pool, Theme clusters, Shortlist | Lotus Diagram, Idea Themes, Shortlist |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityWorkshopDivergence | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityDivergenceWorkshop |