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| Criterion |  UX Research Contextual Inquiry |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Operations Root Cause 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. | When a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. | 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 | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen | 30-60 min | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-12 Beobachtungen | 2-8 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Field Notes, Workflow Insights, Pain Points | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | UX researchObservationContext | Root causeQualityOperations | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |
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