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| Criterion |  UX Research User Interviews |  Facilitation Alignment Mapping |  Engineering Goal Question Metric |  Product Strategy Counter Metrics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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 several people work toward one goal but hold different mental maps, Alignment Mapping makes the discrepancies visible. It arranges goals, assumptions, and priorities so shared direction becomes verifiable. | Helps clarify technical problems, hypotheses, and next steps in concrete terms. It breaks a technical problem into testable parts. The result is captured as a GQM table and metric briefs. | When a headline metric could mask side effects, it adds guardrail signals against unwanted outcomes. It connects customer value, product logic, and decision priorities. The result is captured as a counter-metric list and guardrail definitions. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 30–60 min per interview | 1-2 h | 90-180 min | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1 participant per interview | 4-12 | 3-6 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Alignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions | GQM Table, Metric Profiles | Counter Metric List, Guardrail Definitions |
Tagsno overlap | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation | MetricsMeasurementEngineeringAlignment | MetricsMeasurementStrategyExperiments |