The Evaporating Cloud (EC), also called the Conflict Resolution Diagram, is the thinking-processes tool eliyahu-goldratt designed to surface and dissolve the hidden assumptions that sustain persistent conflicts. Its premise is that any conflict that has resisted resolution for a significant time persists not because the conflict is real, but because both parties hold an unexamined assumption that makes compromise appear impossible. By finding and challenging that assumption, the conflict "evaporates."
The structure of the EC has five elements: the shared goal (the objective both sides want to achieve), two necessary conditions required to reach that goal, two requirements or wants in conflict with each other, and the underlying assumption that makes the two wants appear mutually exclusive. The facilitator maps these five elements into a standardized diagram and then systematically questions every arrow — each causal link — asking: "Is this assumption always true? Under what conditions does it fail?"
When a flawed assumption is exposed, an "injection" — a new idea or action that is not currently in the system — can be proposed that satisfies both necessary conditions without either of the conflicting wants. This injection becomes the input for the future-reality-tree.
The EC is perhaps the most widely used of the thinking-processes tools because it can be applied quickly without building a full current-reality-tree and because its conflict-framing structure resonates across management, personal, and policy domains. Goldratt explored its philosophical implications in the-choice, connecting the EC's logic to the broader claim of inherent-simplicity: apparent dilemmas are almost always illusions created by assumptions, not genuine constraints.
The EC is sometimes used standalone as a negotiation and strategy tool, independent of the full TP suite.