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| Criterion |  Facilitation Mind Mapping |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Innovation Brainstorming |  Decision Making Decision Matrix |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. | When a team faces an open question with many obvious directions, the method first creates breadth instead of premature commitment. It separates idea flow from evaluation and makes lines of thought visible, creating a pool for selection and further development. | When several options collide with several criteria, comparison quickly becomes subjective. A Decision Matrix makes the trade-off visible and brings weighting, criteria, and options into a shared logic. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 15-45 min | 45-120 min | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-10 | 2-8 | 4-12 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Mind Map, Topic Clusters, Open Questions | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Idea pool, Theme clusters, Shortlist | Decision Matrix, Scoring Rationale, Selected Option |
Tagsno overlap | BrainstormingIdeasMappingStructureFacilitation | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityWorkshopDivergence | DecisionCriteriaScoringTradeoffs |