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| Criterion | ![]() Architecture Architecture Decision Record | ![]() Innovation Design Thinking | ![]() Engineering Golden Path | ![]() Product Discovery Outcome-Driven Innovation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | When teams need a reliable default path for frequent use, sprawl quickly emerges without any guiding logic. Golden Path bundles the preferred path so good practice becomes easy and deviation becomes deliberate. | Outcome-Driven Innovation clarifies customer problems, solution opportunities, and evidence. It separates jobs, desired outcomes, importance, satisfaction, and opportunity, and captures results as desired outcome statements, an opportunity landscape, and segments by underserved needs. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | High | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 15-45 min | 1 Tag bis mehrere Wochen | 1-3 Tage Setup, laufend | Mehrere Wochen |
Participantsdifferent | 1-3 | 4-10 | 2-8 | 2-6 researchers plus sample |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | Problem Statement, Prototype, Test Learnings | Golden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks | Desired outcome statements, Opportunity landscape, Segmentation by underserved needs, Innovation hypotheses |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | InnovationPrototypeResearch | EngineeringProductivityGovernance | OutcomesInnovationResearchQuantitative |



