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Criterion
Paper illustration for Contextual Inquiry.
UX Research
Contextual Inquiry
Paper illustration for Constraint Analysis.
Decision Making
Constraint Analysis
Paper matrix with six colored hat cards for information, feeling, value, caution, ideas and process control.
Facilitation
Six Thinking Hats
A hypothetical failure makes concrete risks, signals, and fitting mitigations visible.
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 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.When a topic gets stuck too quickly in the same thinking mode, Six Thinking Hats deliberately separates the perspectives. This means facts, risks, creativity, and emotional signals get worked through one after another instead of mixed together.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
MediumLowMediumLow
Timedifferent
1-3 Wochen30-90 min45-90 min20–45 min
Participantsdifferent
4-12 Beobachtungen2-84-12Small cross-functional group
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop
Outputdifferent
Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain PointsConstraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision BoundariesPerspective Notes, Decision Inputs, Action ItemsRisk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log
Tagsno overlap
UX researchObservationContext
ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions
FacilitationOptionsDecision
RiskDecisionFailurePlanning
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