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| Criterion | ![]() Product Strategy GIST Planning | ![]() UX Research Affinity Diagramming | ![]() Operations Root Cause Analysis | ![]() Operations Barrier Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | GIST Planning helps clarify target groups, value, goals, and priorities. It links customer value, product logic, and decision priorities, and captures the result as goals, an idea bank, and a step-project list. | When research notes, feedback, or observations sit unconnected side by side, affinity diagramming sorts the raw material into solid themes. Many individual points turn into patterns that make decisions and opportunities clearer. | 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 risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | Wochen bis Monate je Goal | 45–90 min | 1-4 h | 2-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 | 3-10 | 3-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Goals, Idea bank, Step-project list, Tasks, Learning reports | Theme clusters, Insight statements, Opportunity areas | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | RoadmapOutcomesPlanningExperiments | SynthesisQualitativeRoot cause | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeSafetyIncident |



