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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Fishbone Diagram |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Operations ALPEN Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers. | 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. | With an overloaded day full of too many tasks, a realistic picture of the day emerges. The method connects estimating, deciding, and buffer thinking so planning fits available energy and time. |
Complexitysame | Low | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 30-60 min | 30-90 min | 10-20 min daily |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | 2-8 | 1 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Daily Plan, Time Estimates, Review Notes |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeQualityOperations | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | PlanningTime managementProductivityOperations |