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| Criterion |  Operations Waste Analysis |  Agile Ideal Days |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Engineering Kanban |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 effort needs to be thought of as real working time, it offers a simple common denominator for comparison. It sorts work by value, risk, and delivery ability. The result is captured as Ideal Day Estimates, Assumption Notes, and Capacity Caveats. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-120 min | 15-60 min | 1-3 h | Ongoing |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 2-9 | 4-10 | 2-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Waste Map, Prioritized Waste, Improvement Backlog | Ideal Day Estimates, Assumption Notes, Capacity Caveats | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics |
Tagsno overlap | WasteLeanProcess improvement | EstimationEffortAgile | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | FlowVisual managementDelivery |