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Selected:ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)Assumption Surfacing
| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Architecture SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method) |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | High | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting | 2-8 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | 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 | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |
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