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| Criterion |  Agile Story Splitting |  Operations 5 Whys |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Barrier 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30-60 min | 15-30 min | 1-4 h | 2-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-6 | 2-6 | 3-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Smaller Stories, Acceptance Criteria, Split Rationale | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | BacklogIterationDelivery | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeSafetyIncident |