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| Criterion | ![]() Facilitation Mind Mapping | ![]() Facilitation Alignment Mapping | ![]() Engineering Goal Question Metric | ![]() Product Strategy Counter Metrics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a topic is still unclear and too many thoughts surface at once, Mind Mapping creates an open surface for ordering them. It makes connections, subtopics, and starting points visible without fixing them too early. | When several people work toward one goal but hold different mental maps, Alignment Mapping makes the discrepancies visible. It arranges goals, assumptions, and priorities so shared direction becomes verifiable. | Helps clarify technical problems, hypotheses, and next steps in concrete terms. It breaks a technical problem into testable parts. The result is captured as a GQM table and metric briefs. | When a headline metric could mask side effects, it adds guardrail signals against unwanted outcomes. It connects customer value, product logic, and decision priorities. The result is captured as a counter-metric list and guardrail definitions. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 15-45 min | 1-2 h | 90-180 min | 30-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-10 | 4-12 | 3-6 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Mind Map, Topic Clusters, Open Questions | Alignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions | GQM Table, Metric Profiles | Counter Metric List, Guardrail Definitions |
Tagsno overlap | BrainstormingIdeasMappingStructureFacilitation | AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation | MetricsMeasurementEngineeringAlignment | MetricsMeasurementStrategyExperiments |



