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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations A3 Problem Solving |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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 a complex deviation with several people involved, the method bundles problem, analysis, and decision onto one page. It creates a shared working space where causes, countermeasures, and follow-up fit together. | 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 assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 45-90 min | 45-90 min | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-5 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | A3 Report, Action Plan, Root Cause Analysis | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | LeanProblem solvingCoachingOperations | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |