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| Criterion |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Engineering Kanban |  Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree |  Operations Causal Factor 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. | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. | For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | High | High |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | Ongoing | 2-6 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 2-12 | 3-8 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | FlowVisual managementDelivery | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline |