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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Causal Factor Analysis |  Operations Fault Tree Analysis |  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 an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | For a critical top event with several possible triggers, the method logically models failure paths. It makes visible which combinations of conditions can lead to damage. | 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 | High | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 2-6 h | 2-6 h | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 3-10 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Fault Tree, Critical Paths, Cause Hypotheses, Control Actions | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | RiskRoot causeSafety | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |