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| Criterion |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Decision Matrix |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. | 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 several options collide with several criteria, comparison quickly becomes subjective. A Decision Matrix makes the trade-off visible and brings weighting, criteria, and options into a shared logic. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 20–45 min | 45-120 min | 45-90 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Decision Matrix, Scoring Rationale, Selected Option |
Tags1 shared | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | DecisionCriteriaScoringTradeoffs |