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Selected:ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Causal Factor AnalysisStock and Flow DiagramCurrent Reality Tree
| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Operations Causal Factor Analysis |  Systems Thinking Stock and Flow Diagram |  Systems Thinking Current Reality Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 an event with a complicated course, the method breaks down the contributing factors along the timeline. It shows how conditions, decisions, and reactions together produce a course of events. | A Stock and Flow Diagram shows how stocks, inflows, and outflows shape a system over time. It is especially suited when growth, delays, or capacity limits determine the dynamics. | A Current Reality Tree condenses many symptoms into a few causal chains. The method makes visible which core problems drive several negative effects at once. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | High | High | High |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 2-6 h | 2-6 h | 2-6 h |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 3-10 | 1-6 | 3-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Event Timeline, Causal Factor Chart, Cause List, Corrective Actions | Stock and Flow Model, Dynamics Notes, Simulation Hypotheses | Current Reality Tree, Core Problems, Intervention Ideas |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | CausalityIncidentRoot causeTimeline | DynamicsSimulationFeedbackSystems thinking | Systems thinkingRoot causeConstraintsCausality |