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| Criterion |  UX Research User Interviews |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 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. | For a process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 30–60 min per interview | 30-60 min | 45-90 min | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | 1 participant per interview | 2-8 | 2-8 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions |
Tagsno overlap | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | Root causeQualityOperations | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause |