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Selected:ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Assumption SurfacingRequest for CommentsArchitecture Decision Record
| Criterion | ![]() Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) | ![]() Decision Making Assumption Surfacing | ![]() Architecture Request for Comments | ![]() Architecture Architecture Decision Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. | An RFC clarifies architecture context, options, and consequences. It structures technical context, alternatives, tradeoffs, open questions, and review feedback, and captures the result as an RFC document, reviewer comments, and a decision rationale. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 45-90 min | 1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung | 15-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 2-8 | 3-20 Reviewer | 1-3 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance |



