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Criterion
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
A 5 Whys working surface connects an observable problem with evidenced causes, marked uncertainty and concrete countermeasures with ownership.
Operations
5 Whys
Paper illustration for Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting.
Engineering
Hypothesis-Driven Troubleshooting
Paper illustration for Fault Isolation.
Engineering
Fault Isolation
Purposedifferent
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 systems fail unexpectedly, spontaneous attempts often produce more noise than insight. Hypothesis-driven Troubleshooting translates symptoms into testable assumptions and makes troubleshooting learnable.In technical failures, the visible symptom often gets mixed up with the actual cause. Fault Isolation narrows the fault space and progressively reduces which part of the system is truly affected.
Complexitydifferent
MediumLowMediumMedium
Timedifferent
2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional15-30 min30-240 min30-180 min
Participantsdifferent
Designers, developers as users, and facilitation2-61-61-6
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsRoot cause notes, CountermeasuresHypothesis Log, Test Plan, Evidence Notes, Diagnosis SummaryFault Isolation Map, Test Log, Excluded Hypotheses, Narrowed Fault Area
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
Root causeIncidentLeanProblem solving
TroubleshootingProblem solvingDiagnosis
TroubleshootingDiagnosisEngineering
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