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| Criterion | ![]() Systems Thinking Rich Picture | ![]() Decision Making Decision Matrix | ![]() Decision Making Trade-off Analysis | ![]() Systems Thinking CATWOE Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | A Rich Picture brings an unclear situation onto a shared drawing. It captures actors, tensions, information flows, and blind spots before the team jumps to solutions too early. | 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. | 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. | CATWOE structures a problem from six viewpoints and prevents too narrow a view of the situation. Different experiences of the system become comparably discussable this way. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30-90 min | 45-90 min | 45-120 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-10 | 2-8 | 2-8 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Rich Picture, Problem Framing Notes | Decision Matrix, Scoring Rationale, Selected Option | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | CATWOE Canvas, Root Definition, Stakeholder Perspectives, Constraints |
Tagsno overlap | Systems thinkingSoft systemsFramingVisualization | DecisionCriteriaScoringTradeoffs | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | Systems thinkingFramingStakeholders |



