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| Criterion | ![]() Engineering Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting | ![]() Decision Making Pre-Mortem | ![]() Decision Making Decision Tree | ![]() Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | For decisions with follow-on paths and dependencies, a linear comparison is often not enough. A Decision Tree shows how options branch under conditions and which consequences hang on each branch. | 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 | 30-240 min | 20–45 min | 30-90 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | Small cross-functional group | 1-6 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Hypothesis Log, Test Plan, Evidence Notes, Diagnosis Summary | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Decision Tree, Option Map, Assumption List | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | TroubleshootingProblem solvingDiagnosis | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | DecisionTreeOptions | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |



