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| Criterion |  Decision Making Risk Matrix |  Innovation Design Thinking |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a project faces many possible disruptions, it quickly becomes unclear which risks deserve attention first. It separates options, evaluation criteria, and open risks. The result is captured as a Risk Matrix and a Top Risk List. | For complex user problems with an uncertain cause, the method connects observation, interpretation, and experiment into a learning cycle. It keeps the focus on real needs and avoids premature solution language. This produces robust decisions for product and service. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 30-60 min | 1 Tag bis mehrere Wochen | 20–45 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 | 4-10 | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Risk Matrix, Top Risk List | Problem Statement, Prototype, Test Learnings | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | RiskDecisionPrioritizationAssessment | InnovationPrototypeResearch | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |