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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Fault Tree Analysis |  Operations 5 Whys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 critical top event with several possible triggers, the method logically models failure paths. It makes visible which combinations of conditions can lead to damage. | For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 1-4 h | 2-6 h | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 3-8 | 3-8 | 2-6 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Fault Tree, Critical Paths, Cause Hypotheses, Control Actions | Root cause notes, Countermeasures |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | RiskRoot causeSafety | Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving |