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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations A3 Problem Solving |  Product Discovery Test Card |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | The Test Card turns a critical assumption into a testable claim and specifies in advance which result counts as success. | 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 | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 45-90 min | 20-35 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-5 | 1-5 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | A3 Report, Action Plan, Root Cause Analysis | Test Card with a pre-set threshold | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | LeanProblem solvingCoachingOperations | ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryHypothesis | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |