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| Criterion |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Engineering Kanban |  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. | 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. | 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 | Ongoing | 15-30 min | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 2-12 | 2-6 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics | Root cause notes, Countermeasures | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | FlowVisual managementDelivery | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |