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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Engineering Failure Scenario Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | 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. | In critical processes, it is not enough to plan only for the normal case. Failure Scenario Analysis looks at the path into failure and shows which failures, chains, and control gaps cause the most damage. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 45-90 min | 20–45 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Failure Scenarios, Risk Notes, Control Gaps, Test and Response Actions |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | FailureResilienceRisk |