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| Criterion |  Product Strategy SMART Goals |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When goals are formulated too generally, it brings measurability, direction, and timing into shape. It prevents intentions from staying without clear verification. | 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. | 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 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 | 15-30 min | 45-90 min | 20–45 min | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 1-8 | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | SMART Goal, Measurement Note, Deadline | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | GoalsPlanningMeasurementAlignment | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |