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| Criterion |  Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. | 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 disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 2-6 h | 20–45 min | 2-8 h | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries |
Tagsno overlap | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions |