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| Criterion |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For a process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability. | When teams derive needs only from assumptions and real motives are missing, user interviews give direct access to behavior and meaning. Conversations from the target group's everyday life make patterns, tensions, and open questions solidly visible. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 2-6 h | 30–60 min per interview | 1-4 h | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 | 1 participant per interview | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeQualityOperations |