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Selected:Architecture Decision Record ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)5 Whys Root Cause Analysis

Criterion	Architecture Architecture Decision Record	Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)	Operations 5 Whys	Operations Root Cause Analysis
Purposedifferent	An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable.	ARID examines how well developers can work with a technical design. It focuses on a part of the system that can still be revised, between the architecture overview and the detailed specification.	For a single, hard-to-explain deviation, the method exposes the causal chain behind the visible symptom. It keeps the cause open until a controllable condition emerges instead of a mere description.	When a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another.
Complexitydifferent	Low	Medium	Low	Medium
Timedifferent	15-45 min	2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional	15-30 min	1-4 h
Participantsdifferent	1-3	Designers, developers as users, and facilitation	2-6	3-8
Formatdifferent	Async	Workshop + async	Workshop	Workshop + async
Outputdifferent	ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale	Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions	Root cause notes, Countermeasures	Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan
Tagsno overlap	ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance	ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks	Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving	Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident

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