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Selected:ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)Pre-MortemAssumption Mapping
| Criterion | ![]() Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) | ![]() Architecture ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method) | ![]() Decision Making Pre-Mortem | ![]() Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | ATAM helps teams weigh architecture decisions when quality goals compete. The team considers business goals, stakeholder expectations, and technical decisions together. The evaluation shows which risks need further investigation. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | High | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | Several meetings plus preparation and analysis; total effort depends on scope | 20–45 min | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | Evaluation team, architects, and relevant stakeholders | Small cross-functional group | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Prioritized quality scenarios in a utility tree, Architecture risks with reasoning and assumptions, Sensitivity and trade-off points, Findings report with open investigations | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | ArchitectureQualityRiskTradeoffsStakeholders | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |



