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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Decision Making Risk Matrix |  Architecture Request for Comments |  Decision Making Constraint 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 a project faces many possible disruptions, it quickly becomes unclear which risks deserve attention first. It separates options, evaluation criteria, and open risks. The result is captured as a Risk Matrix and a Top Risk List. | An RFC clarifies architecture context, options, and consequences. It structures technical context, alternatives, tradeoffs, open questions, and review feedback, and captures the result as an RFC document, reviewer comments, and a decision rationale. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 30-60 min | 1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 3-10 | 3-20 Reviewer | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Risk Matrix, Top Risk List | RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries |
Tags1 shared | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | RiskDecisionPrioritizationAssessment | ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions |