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| Criterion |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  DevOps Blameless Postmortem |  Operations 5 Whys |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | After an incident with damage or a near miss, the method creates a sober field for learning without assigning blame. It directs attention to the course of events, conditions, and effective countermeasures. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 30-90 min | 15-30 min | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 3-12 | 2-6 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Postmortem Doc, Action Items, Timeline | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | Site Reliability EngineeringIncidentLearningReliability | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |