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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Product Strategy SMART Goals |  Operations Bottleneck 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. | When an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | When goals are formulated too generally, it brings measurability, direction, and timing into shape. It prevents intentions from staying without clear verification. | For a flow that backs up at one point, the method looks for the capacity limit with the greatest leverage. It explains why extra effort elsewhere barely improves throughput. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 30-90 min | 15-30 min | 1-3 h |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | 1-8 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | SMART Goal, Measurement Note, Deadline | Bottleneck Map, Flow Metrics, Improvement Options, Follow-up Measures |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | GoalsPlanningMeasurementAlignment | FlowMeasurementConstraints |