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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Root Cause Tree 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 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 problem with several suspected causes, the method builds a causal structure instead of a mere list. It makes visible how causes connect and where the strongest points of leverage lie. | 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 | Medium | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 1-4 h | 1-3 h | 2-8 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 3-8 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Cause Tree, Evidence Notes, Countermeasures | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeTreeIncidentQuality | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations |