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| Criterion |  Product Strategy Lean Canvas |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Engineering Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When an early product bet still has too many open points, it brings target group, problem, and assumptions into a single view. It condenses the idea so core risks become nameable. | 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 systems fail unexpectedly, spontaneous attempts often produce more noise than insight. Hypothesis-driven Troubleshooting translates symptoms into testable assumptions and makes troubleshooting learnable. | For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | 30-240 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 2-8 | 1-6 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Lean Canvas, Core Assumptions, Experiment Backlog | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Hypothesis Log, Test Plan, Evidence Notes, Diagnosis Summary | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | StartupLeanAssumptionsBusiness model | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | TroubleshootingProblem solvingDiagnosis | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |