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| Criterion |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Innovation Design Thinking |  Product Discovery Outcome-Driven Innovation |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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 complex user problems with an uncertain cause, the method connects observation, interpretation, and experiment into a learning cycle. It keeps the focus on real needs and avoids premature solution language. This produces robust decisions for product and service. | Outcome-Driven Innovation clarifies customer problems, solution opportunities, and evidence. It separates jobs, desired outcomes, importance, satisfaction, and opportunity, and captures results as desired outcome statements, an opportunity landscape, and segments by underserved needs. | For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | High | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-4 h | 1 Tag bis mehrere Wochen | Mehrere Wochen | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | 4-10 | 2-6 researchers plus sample | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Problem Statement, Prototype, Test Learnings | Desired outcome statements, Opportunity landscape, Segmentation by underserved needs, Innovation hypotheses | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | InnovationPrototypeResearch | OutcomesInnovationResearchQuantitative | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |