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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |  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. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 20–45 min | 2-6 h | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 3-10 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause | Root causeQualityOperations |