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| Criterion | ![]() Engineering Fault Isolation | ![]() Decision Making Assumption Surfacing | ![]() Decision Making Argument Mapping | ![]() Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | In technical failures, the visible symptom often gets mixed up with the actual cause. Fault Isolation narrows the fault space and progressively reduces which part of the system is truly affected. | 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 statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. | 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 | 30-180 min | 45-90 min | 1-3 h | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 2-8 | 1-8 | 2-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Fault Isolation Map, Test Log, Excluded Hypotheses, Narrowed Fault Area | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | TroubleshootingDiagnosisEngineering | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | SensemakingDecisionRationale | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |



