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| Criterion | ![]() Engineering Failure Scenario Analysis | ![]() Decision Making Pre-Mortem | ![]() Engineering Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting | ![]() Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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 systems fail unexpectedly, spontaneous attempts often produce more noise than insight. Hypothesis-driven Troubleshooting translates symptoms into testable assumptions and makes troubleshooting learnable. | 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 | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 h | 20–45 min | 30-240 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | Small cross-functional group | 1-6 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Failure Scenarios, Risk Notes, Control Gaps, Test and Response Actions | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Hypothesis Log, Test Plan, Evidence Notes, Diagnosis Summary | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | FailureResilienceRisk | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | TroubleshootingProblem solvingDiagnosis | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |



