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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)
Software Architecture Canvas method illustration showing its working structure
Architecture
Software Architecture Canvas
A paper-based illustration representing North Star Metric with its core stages and visible working result.
Growth
North Star Metric
Paper illustration for Risk Storming.
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
MediumLowMediumLow
Timedifferent
2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional1-2 h1-2 h60-90 min
Participantsdifferent
Designers, developers as users, and facilitation3-103-84-12
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop + asyncWorkshop
Outputdifferent
Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsArchitecture Canvas, Goals, Constraints, Quality AttributesNorth Star metric, Input metric tree, Measurement cadenceAnnotated Diagram, Prioritized Risk List, Action Backlog
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
CanvasArchitectureAlignmentWorkshop
GrowthMetricsAlignmentRetention
RiskArchitectureWorkshopValidation
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