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| Criterion |  Systems Thinking Evaporating Cloud |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Engineering Failure Scenario Analysis |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | The method makes visible why two seemingly incompatible demands arise and which assumption must be tested to resolve the conflict. | 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. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 60-120 min | 20–45 min | 1-3 h | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Conflict Cloud, Assumption List, Breakthrough Ideas, Next Experiments | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Failure Scenarios, Risk Notes, Control Gaps, Test and Response Actions | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | Theory of ConstraintsAssumptionsSystems thinking | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | FailureResilienceRisk | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |