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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 for Root Cause Tree Analysis
Operations
Root Cause Tree Analysis
Paper illustration with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Paper illustration for Root Cause Analysis.
Operations
Root Cause 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.For a problem with several suspected causes, the method builds a causal structure instead of a mere list. It makes visible how causes connect and where the strongest points of leverage lie.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.When a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another.
Complexitydifferent
MediumMediumHighMedium
Timedifferent
2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional1-3 hPreparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope1-4 h
Participantsdifferent
Designers, developers as users, and facilitation2-8Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting3-8
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsCause Tree, Evidence Notes, CountermeasuresDomain functions mapped to components and connections, Quality attributes and evaluation criteria, Typical tasks and their effects on the architecture, Reasoned evaluation or comparison of alternativesProblem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
Root causeTreeIncidentQuality
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident
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