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| Criterion | ![]() Delivery Value Stream Mapping | ![]() Facilitation Alignment Mapping | ![]() Product Strategy Counter Metrics | ![]() Engineering Goal Question Metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | When several people work toward one goal but hold different mental maps, Alignment Mapping makes the discrepancies visible. It arranges goals, assumptions, and priorities so shared direction becomes verifiable. | When a headline metric could mask side effects, it adds guardrail signals against unwanted outcomes. It connects customer value, product logic, and decision priorities. The result is captured as a counter-metric list and guardrail definitions. | Helps clarify technical problems, hypotheses, and next steps in concrete terms. It breaks a technical problem into testable parts. The result is captured as a GQM table and metric briefs. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 1-2 h | 30-60 min | 90-180 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 4-12 | 2-6 | 3-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Alignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions | Counter Metric List, Guardrail Definitions | GQM Table, Metric Profiles |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation | MetricsMeasurementStrategyExperiments | MetricsMeasurementEngineeringAlignment |



