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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 with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Paper illustration for Golden Path
Engineering
Golden Path
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.When teams need a reliable default path for frequent use, sprawl quickly emerges without any guiding logic. Golden Path bundles the preferred path so good practice becomes easy and deviation becomes deliberate.
Complexitydifferent
MediumHighMedium
Timedifferent
2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additionalPreparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope1-3 Tage Setup, laufend
Participantsdifferent
Designers, developers as users, and facilitationArchitecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting2-8
Formatsame
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsDomain functions mapped to components and connections, Quality attributes and evaluation criteria, Typical tasks and their effects on the architecture, Reasoned evaluation or comparison of alternativesGolden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
EngineeringProductivityGovernance
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.

Paper illustration of two considered options leading to a decision record with a marked status and visible consequences.
Architecture
Architecture Decision Record
Paper illustration: scenarios and architectural decisions are connected to identified risks.
Architecture
ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)
Paper illustration for Change Analysis.
Operations
Change Analysis
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Operations
Getting Things Done