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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Barrier Analysis |  Operations Failure Mode and Effects 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 problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | For a risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. | For a process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 1-4 h | 2-4 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 | 2-6 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog | FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeSafetyIncident | RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause |