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| Criterion |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | For a disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 2-6 h | 30–60 min per interview | 1-4 h | 2-8 h |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 | 1 participant per interview | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations |