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| Criterion | ![]() Delivery Value Stream Mapping | ![]() Agile Bucket System | ![]() Facilitation Dot Estimation | ![]() Agile Affinity Estimation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 a large batch of work needs a fast, rough estimate, it sorts items into predefined size buckets. It sorts work by value, risk, and delivery ability. The result is captured as a Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, and Split Candidates. | When size or effort can only be estimated roughly, Dot Estimation condenses the group's experience into a quick range. It turns individual contributions into a visible selection. The result is captured as an Effort Heatmap, Risk Signals, and Discussion Targets. | When many tasks need to be classified quickly, it sorts them by perceived effort and similarity. It reduces the effort of fine-grained estimation for large volumes. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 30-90 min | 5-20 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 3-12 | 3-20 | 3-12 |
Formatsame | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, Split Candidates | Effort Heatmap, Risk Signals, Discussion Targets | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | EstimationEffortRisk | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing |



