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| Criterion |  Engineering Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | When an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | 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 | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 30-240 min | 45-90 min | 30-90 min | 20–45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 2-8 | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Hypothesis Log, Test Plan, Evidence Notes, Diagnosis Summary | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log |
Tagsno overlap | TroubleshootingProblem solvingDiagnosis | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning |