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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Decision Making Argument Mapping |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When work processes are known only from accounts and the real context stays hidden, Contextual Inquiry makes behavior at the workplace visible. Observation and follow-up questions together show how people actually work, get interrupted, and improvise. | When statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. | When an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 1-3 h | 30-90 min | 20–45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 1-8 | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | SensemakingDecisionRationale | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning |