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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Barrier Analysis |  Growth A/B Testing |  Product Discovery Smoke 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. | For a risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. | When two variants compete, discussions quickly decide by taste rather than effect. A/B Testing checks behavior under controlled conditions and separates real improvement from chance or expectation effects. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 2-4 h | 1-4 Wochen | 1-5 Tage |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-6 | 1-6 | Nutzertraffic |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog | Experiment results, Decision log, Learning summary | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeSafetyIncident | ExperimentsGrowthAnalyticsValidation | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth |