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| Criterion |  Agile Story Splitting |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Operations 5 Whys |  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. | When delivery work dissolves into wait times, handoffs, and hidden effort, Value Stream Mapping makes the actual flow visible. The method exposes bottlenecks, idle time, and feedback loops so lead time and improvement levers become tangible. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30-60 min | 1-3 h | 15-30 min | 2-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-6 | 4-10 | 2-6 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Smaller Stories, Acceptance Criteria, Split Rationale | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | BacklogIterationDelivery | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | Root causeSafetyIncident |