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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Risk Matrix |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | When a project faces many possible disruptions, it quickly becomes unclear which risks deserve attention first. It separates options, evaluation criteria, and open risks. The result is captured as a Risk Matrix and a Top Risk List. | When a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | For a disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 30-60 min | 1-4 h | 2-8 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-10 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Risk Matrix, Top Risk List | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskDecisionPrioritizationAssessment | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations |