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Criterion
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Paper illustration of a MoSCoW board with four columns and a visible release boundary.
Delivery
MoSCoW
Paper illustration of an assumption matrix with prioritized test cards
Decision Making
Assumption Surfacing
Paper illustration of a calm four-quadrant Assumption Map with hypothesis cards and emphasis on important assumptions with little evidence.
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.When a release carries too many demands and priorities are only ever negotiated, MoSCoW creates clear boundaries for the next cut. Must, Should, Could, and Won't make commitment, room for maneuver, and trade-off logic visible to everyone involved.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.When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first.
Complexitydifferent
MediumLowLowMedium
Timedifferent
2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional30-90 min45-90 min45-60 min
Participantsdifferent
Designers, developers as users, and facilitation3-122-82-8
Formatsame
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsPrioritized Backlog, Release Scope, Tradeoff NotesAssumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning PlanAssumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
PrioritizationScopeDecision
AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery
AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation
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