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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Operations Root Cause Tree Analysis |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Operations Root Cause 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. | For a problem with several suspected causes, the method builds a causal structure instead of a mere list. It makes visible how causes connect and where the strongest points of leverage lie. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 1-3 h | 30-90 min | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | 2-8 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Cause Tree, Evidence Notes, Countermeasures | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | Root causeTreeIncidentQuality | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident |