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| Criterion | ![]() Decision Making Pre-Mortem | ![]() Product Discovery Assumption Mapping | ![]() Product Discovery Smoke Test | ![]() Product Discovery Riskiest Assumption Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | When demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all. | When an idea hinges on one critical unknown, it prioritizes testing that exact piece of uncertainty first. It separates problem, assumption, solution, and evidence. The result is captured as a prioritized list of assumptions, a test plan, and a result report. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 45-60 min | 1-5 Tage | 1-2 Wochen pro Iteration |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | Nutzertraffic | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Prioritized Assumption List, Test Plan, Results Report |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryAssumptions |



