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| Criterion |  Operations Waste Analysis |  Delivery Value Stream Mapping |  Agile Bucket System |  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 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 a large batch of work needs a fast, rough estimate, it sorts items into predefined size buckets. It sorts work by value, risk, and delivery ability. The result is captured as a Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, and Split Candidates. | 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 | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-120 min | 1-3 h | 30-90 min | Ongoing |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 4-10 | 3-12 | 2-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Waste Map, Prioritized Waste, Improvement Backlog | Current-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list | Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, Split Candidates | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics |
Tagsno overlap | WasteLeanProcess improvement | LeanFlowWasteDelivery | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | FlowVisual managementDelivery |