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| Criterion |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Engineering Kanban |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 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. | When work sits in too many parallel streams, throughput suffers and no one sees the bottlenecks. Kanban makes the flow of work visible and limits overload so a system becomes calmer and more predictable. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 30-60 min | Ongoing | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 2-8 | 2-12 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | Root causeQualityOperations | FlowVisual managementDelivery | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |