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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Architecture arc42 |  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 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. | arc42 structures architecture knowledge so teams can document system, decisions, and risks consistently. The template builds a living understanding of the architecture instead of scattered notes. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 20–45 min | 1-2 Tage | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 1-4 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Architecture Document, Context View, Runtime View, Deployment View | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ArchitectureDocumentationCommunication | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |