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| Criterion |  Operations Causal Factor Analysis |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | When demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 2-6 h | 1-5 Tage | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 | Nutzertraffic | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |
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