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| Criterion |  Agile Story Splitting |  Operations 5 Whys |  Operations Barrier Analysis |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a story becomes too large for a clean flow, it breaks scope down along value and risk. It shapes the work into a form that ships earlier and is easier to verify. | 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. | 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 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30-60 min | 15-30 min | 2-4 h | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-6 | 2-6 | 2-6 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Smaller Stories, Acceptance Criteria, Split Rationale | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | BacklogIterationDelivery | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | Root causeSafetyIncident | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |