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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Argument 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. | An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable. | 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 statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 15-45 min | 45-90 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 1-3 | 2-8 | 1-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | SensemakingDecisionRationale |