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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Facilitation Dot Estimation |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  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. | When size or effort can only be estimated roughly, Dot Estimation condenses the group's experience into a quick range. It turns individual contributions into a visible selection. The result is captured as an Effort Heatmap, Risk Signals, and Discussion Targets. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitysame | Low | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 5-20 min | 1-5 Tage | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 3-20 | Nutzertraffic | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Effort Heatmap, Risk Signals, Discussion Targets | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | EstimationEffortRisk | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |