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| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  UX Research User Interviews |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Engineering Failure Scenario Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 teams derive needs only from assumptions and real motives are missing, user interviews give direct access to behavior and meaning. Conversations from the target group's everyday life make patterns, tensions, and open questions solidly visible. | 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. | In critical processes, it is not enough to plan only for the normal case. Failure Scenario Analysis looks at the path into failure and shows which failures, chains, and control gaps cause the most damage. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 30–60 min per interview | 20–45 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 1 participant per interview | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Interview Notes, Themes, Insight Summary | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Failure Scenarios, Risk Notes, Control Gaps, Test and Response Actions |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | QualitativeResearchCustomerDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | FailureResilienceRisk |