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| Criterion |  Engineering Golden Path |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  Innovation Lean Startup |  Product Discovery Fake Door Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When teams need a reliable default path for frequent use, sprawl quickly emerges without any guiding logic. Golden Path bundles the preferred path so good practice becomes easy and deviation becomes deliberate. | 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. | For uncertain business assumptions, the method forces the idea into contact with real market reactions early. It separates wishful picture, assumption, and observable behavior, so that learning becomes faster than planning. This translates uncertainty into measurable insight. | When demand is still unclear, it measures interest in a feature before it is built. It separates real behavior from polite agreement and deliberately keeps build effort small. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Tage Setup, laufend | 1-5 Tage | Wochen bis Monate je Lernzyklus | 1-5 Tage |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | Nutzertraffic | 2-8 | Nutzertraffic |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Golden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Hypothesis list, MVPs, Learning reports, Pivot or persevere decision | Click Data, Interest Signal, Learning Decision |
Tagsno overlap | EngineeringProductivityGovernance | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | LeanStartupValidationMVP | ValidationExperimentsDemandDiscovery |