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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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 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 | Low | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 30–60 min per interview | 1-4 h | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 1 participant per interview | 3-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |