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| Criterion |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Product Discovery Test Card |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  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. | The Test Card turns a critical assumption into a testable claim and specifies in advance which result counts as success. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | 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 | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 h | 20-35 min | 45-60 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | 1-5 | 2-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Test Card with a pre-set threshold | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryHypothesis | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |