View methods side by side.
Choose up to four methods. Add them using the search and share the comparison by copying its link.
| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Product Discovery Smoke Test |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 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. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 1-5 Tage | 45-90 min | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | Nutzertraffic | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Interest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |