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| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Facilitation Alignment Mapping |  Innovation Brainstorming |  Innovation Lotus Blossom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | When several people work toward one goal but hold different mental maps, Alignment Mapping makes the discrepancies visible. It arranges goals, assumptions, and priorities so shared direction becomes verifiable. | When a team faces an open question with many obvious directions, the method first creates breadth instead of premature commitment. It separates idea flow from evaluation and makes lines of thought visible, creating a pool for selection and further development. | When a central question feels too large, the method breaks it into neighboring topic fields with their own depth of ideation. It holds structure and openness at the same time, so adjacent perspectives don't get lost. This grows an idea space out of a core problem. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-2 h | 30-60 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 4-12 | 4-12 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Alignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions | Idea pool, Theme clusters, Shortlist | Lotus Diagram, Idea Themes, Shortlist |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityWorkshopDivergence | BrainstormingIdeationCreativityDivergenceWorkshop |