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Selected:ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Software Architecture CanvasNorth Star MetricRisk Storming
| Criterion | ![]() Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) | ![]() Architecture Software Architecture Canvas | ![]() Growth North Star Metric | ![]() Architecture Risk Storming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | The Software Architecture Canvas reduces a system to the most important architecture decisions, constraints, and interfaces. It is useful when teams need a resilient overall picture quickly. | When product teams track many metrics, the view of the actual customer outcome easily gets lost. A North Star Metric bundles growth, usage, and value contribution into one signal that makes the system's direction visible. | Helps clarify architecture context, options, and consequences in concrete terms. It organizes technical context, alternatives, and consequences. The result is captured as an Annotated Diagram, a Prioritized Risk List, and an Action Backlog. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-2 h | 1-2 h | 60-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 3-10 | 3-8 | 4-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Architecture Canvas, Goals, Constraints, Quality Attributes | North Star metric, Input metric tree, Measurement cadence | Annotated Diagram, Prioritized Risk List, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | CanvasArchitectureAlignmentWorkshop | GrowthMetricsAlignmentRetention | RiskArchitectureWorkshopValidation |



