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| Criterion |  Operations PDCA Cycle |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Engineering Failure Scenario Analysis |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For an improvement that still has to prove itself in everyday work, the method runs it through small learning loops. It connects planning, checking, and standardization into a repeatable learning mode. | 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. | In critical processes, it is not enough to plan only for the normal case. Failure Scenario Analysis looks at the path into failure and shows which failures, chains, and control gaps cause the most damage. | 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 | Low | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1 h bis mehrere Wochen | 20–45 min | 1-3 h | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-8 | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | PDCA Log, Experiment Plan, Learning Outcome, Standard Change | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Failure Scenarios, Risk Notes, Control Gaps, Test and Response Actions | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | Continuous improvementLeanExperiments | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | FailureResilienceRisk | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |