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| Criterion |  Systems Thinking Evaporating Cloud |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | When demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 60-120 min | 20–45 min | 1-5 Tage | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | Nutzertraffic | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Conflict Cloud, Assumption List, Breakthrough Ideas, Next Experiments | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | Theory of ConstraintsAssumptionsSystems thinking | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |