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| Criterion |  Systems Thinking Evaporating Cloud |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Kepner-Tregoe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | The method makes visible why two seemingly incompatible demands arise and which assumption must be tested to resolve the conflict. | 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 disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 60-120 min | 45-90 min | 1-4 h | 2-8 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 2-8 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Conflict Cloud, Assumption List, Breakthrough Ideas, Next Experiments | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk Plan |
Tagsno overlap | Theory of ConstraintsAssumptionsSystems thinking | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations |