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| Criterion |  UX Research Customer Journey Mapping |  Operations Family Tree Analysis |  Operations Causal Factor Analysis |  Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a user journey falls apart across many touchpoints, customer journey mapping makes the experience visible as a coherent arc. Phases, emotions, and breaks become legible enough to prioritize critical moments deliberately. | For a series of incidents with a similar pattern, the method arranges individual events as branches of a common origin. It makes visible which conditions keep recurring. | For an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | High | High |
Timedifferent | 2-4 h | 2-4 h | 2-6 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | 2-6 | 3-10 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Journey Map, Pain-point List, Opportunity Backlog | Family Tree Diagram, Pattern Notes, Systemic Measures | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas |
Tagsno overlap | JourneyServiceService design | Root causePatternsIncidentSystemic | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality |