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| Criterion |  Decision Making Argument Mapping |  Facilitation Expectation Mapping |  Agile Starfish Retrospective |  Facilitation Alignment Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. | When roles, interfaces, or projects fail because of differing expectations, Expectation Mapping surfaces these differences. It shows what each side takes for granted and where the pictures diverge. | When improvement options need to be sorted more finely than just start and stop, it brings observations into clear kinds of action. This makes visible what should be done more, less, newly, or continued. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | 1-2 h |
Participantsdifferent | 1-8 | 3-12 | 4-12 | 4-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale | Expectation Map, Alignment Notes, Agreements | Starfish Board, Practice Changes, Experiments | Alignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions |
Tagsno overlap | SensemakingDecisionRationale | AlignmentStakeholdersTeam | RetrospectiveImprovementExperimentsTeam | AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation |