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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Decision Making PERT 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. | On complex initiatives, a plain average tends to understate just how uncertain the outcome really is. It separates options, evaluation criteria, and open risks. The result is captured as a PERT Estimate, Expected Value, and Risk Notes. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 15-45 min | 1-5 Tage | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 1-8 | Nutzertraffic | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | PERT Estimate, Expected Value, Risk Notes | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | EstimationUncertaintyRisk | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |