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| Criterion | ![]() Decision Making Pre-Mortem | ![]() Product Discovery Test Card | ![]() Decision Making Constraint Analysis | ![]() Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | The Test Card turns a critical assumption into a testable claim and specifies in advance which result counts as success. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitysame | Low | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 20-35 min | 30-90 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 1-5 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Test Card with a pre-set threshold | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryHypothesis | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |



