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| Criterion |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations Fault Tree Analysis |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | For a critical top event with several possible triggers, the method logically models failure paths. It makes visible which combinations of conditions can lead to damage. | When a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 30–60 min per interview | 2-6 h | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1 participant per interview | 3-8 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Fault Tree, Critical Paths, Cause Hypotheses, Control Actions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | RiskRoot causeSafety | Root causeQualityOperations | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |