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| Criterion |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Engineering Kanban |  Product Strategy Lean Canvas |  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 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. | When an early product bet still has too many open points, it brings target group, problem, and assumptions into a single view. It condenses the idea so core risks become nameable. | 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 | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | Ongoing | 45-90 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 2-12 | 1-6 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics | Lean Canvas, Core Assumptions, Experiment Backlog | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | FlowVisual managementDelivery | StartupLeanAssumptionsBusiness model | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |