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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 2-6 h | 20–45 min | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-10 | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeQualityOperations |