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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Barrier Analysis |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | For a process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 2-4 h | 1-4 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-6 | 3-8 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeSafetyIncident | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause |