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| Criterion | ![]() Engineering Failure Scenario Analysis | ![]() Decision Making Cynefin Workshop | ![]() Product Discovery Assumption Mapping | ![]() Decision Making Pre-Mortem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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 problems are unclear, chaotic, or only seemingly familiar, standard recipes fall short. A Cynefin Workshop sorts situations by the nature of their problem and connects them with matching action logic. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 60-180 min | 45-60 min | 20–45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | 4-20 | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Failure Scenarios, Risk Notes, Control Gaps, Test and Response Actions | Cynefin Map, Domain-specific Actions, Sensemaking Notes | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log |
Tagsno overlap | FailureResilienceRisk | ComplexitySensemakingDecision | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning |



