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| Criterion |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Systems Thinking Evaporating Cloud |  Delivery Cost of Delay |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | The method makes visible why two seemingly incompatible demands arise and which assumption must be tested to resolve the conflict. | Helps clarify scope, order, and delivery flow in concrete terms. It makes work, constraints, and sequence manageable. The result is captured as a Cost of Delay table and prioritization sequence. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 60-120 min | 90-180 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 2-8 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Conflict Cloud, Assumption List, Breakthrough Ideas, Next Experiments | CoD Table, Prioritization Sequence | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | Theory of ConstraintsAssumptionsSystems thinking | PrioritizationDeliveryEconomicsDecision | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |