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| Criterion |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | 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. | 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. | 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 | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 30-90 min | 20–45 min | 30-60 min | 2-8 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan |
Tagsno overlap | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeQualityOperations | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations |