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| Criterion |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. | 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 problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | High | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-120 min | 2-6 h | 2-6 h | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-8 | 3-10 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | Root causeQualityOperations |