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| Criterion |  Systems Thinking Theory of Constraints Thinking Process |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | The Theory of Constraints Thinking Process exposes a system's bottleneck and the logic behind it. It suits situations where many symptoms trace back to the same limiting relationship. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 0.5-3 Tage | 20–45 min | 45-60 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 4-10 | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Current Reality Logic, Conflict Cloud, Future Reality Tree, Implementation Obstacles | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries |
Tagsno overlap | Theory of ConstraintsConstraintsSystems thinkingCausality | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions |