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| Criterion |  Innovation How Might We |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | With a stuck problem carrying many implicit assumptions, the method translates observations into open, workable questions. It sharpens the problem frame without pre-thinking the solution, turning frustration or fuzziness into a search space with clear direction. | 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. | 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 assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30–45 min | 45-90 min | 20–45 min | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-10 | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | HMW Questions, Challenge Framing, Idea Prompts | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | FramingOpportunityIdeationQuestions | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |