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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Systems Thinking Future Reality Tree |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  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. | A Future Reality Tree shows how desired actions are meant to lead to a better system state. The method checks whether a path of change holds together logically before time flows into implementation. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | 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 | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 2-4 h | 45-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Future Reality Tree, Negative Branches, Assumption List, Improved Injections | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Theory of ConstraintsSystems thinkingChange | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |