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| Criterion |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | 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. | 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 | Medium | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-60 min | 2-6 h | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-10 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | Root causeQualityOperations | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |