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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. | When teams derive needs only from assumptions and real motives are missing, user interviews give direct access to behavior and meaning. Conversations from the target group's everyday life make patterns, tensions, and open questions solidly visible. | For a process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability. | When a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 30–60 min per interview | 2-6 h | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 1 participant per interview | 3-10 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | Root causeQualityOperations |