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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Engineering Failure Scenario Analysis |  Systems Thinking Future Reality Tree |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | In critical processes, it is not enough to plan only for the normal case. Failure Scenario Analysis looks at the path into failure and shows which failures, chains, and control gaps cause the most damage. | A Future Reality Tree shows how desired actions are meant to lead to a better system state. The method checks whether a path of change holds together logically before time flows into implementation. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | High | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 1-3 h | 2-4 h | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-8 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Failure Scenarios, Risk Notes, Control Gaps, Test and Response Actions | Future Reality Tree, Negative Branches, Assumption List, Improved Injections | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | FailureResilienceRisk | Theory of ConstraintsSystems thinkingChange | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |