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Selected:ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Decision MatrixSAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)Trade-off Analysis
| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Decision Making Decision Matrix |  Architecture SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method) |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 options collide with several criteria, comparison quickly becomes subjective. A Decision Matrix makes the trade-off visible and brings weighting, criteria, and options into a shared logic. | SAAM helps teams judge an architecture’s suitability for selected tasks and changes. It is particularly useful for examining modifiability and comparing architecture alternatives with clear reasoning. | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | High | Medium |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 45-90 min | Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope | 45-120 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 2-8 | Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting | 2-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Decision Matrix, Scoring Rationale, Selected Option | Domain functions mapped to components and connections, Quality attributes and evaluation criteria, Typical tasks and their effects on the architecture, Reasoned evaluation or comparison of alternatives | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | DecisionCriteriaScoringTradeoffs | ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions |