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| Criterion |  Operations Waste Analysis |  Agile Affinity Estimation |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Root Cause Tree Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For a process that keeps people busy but creates little value, the method exposes waste. It directs attention to unnecessary movement, waiting times, rework, and overdelivery. | When many tasks need to be classified quickly, it sorts them by perceived effort and similarity. It reduces the effort of fine-grained estimation for large volumes. | 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. | For a problem with several suspected causes, the method builds a causal structure instead of a mere list. It makes visible how causes connect and where the strongest points of leverage lie. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-120 min | 30-90 min | 1-4 h | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-12 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Waste Map, Prioritized Waste, Improvement Backlog | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Cause Tree, Evidence Notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | WasteLeanProcess improvement | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeTreeIncidentQuality |