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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 of Starbursting with its method-specific working model.
Innovation
Starbursting
Paper illustration of the Lotus Blossom working structure.
Innovation
Lotus Blossom
Paper illustration for Reverse Brainstorming
Innovation
Reverse Brainstorming
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.Helps clarify ideas, open questions, and testable next steps in concrete terms. It opens the thinking space, collects ideas, and leads to testable options. The result is captured as a star-shaped question map, question list, and assumption list.When a central question feels too large, the method breaks it into neighboring topic fields with their own depth of ideation. It holds structure and openness at the same time, so adjacent perspectives don't get lost. This grows an idea space out of a core problem.For persistent errors or blockages, the method shifts the view to the opposite of the desired effect. It exposes the mechanics of failure and makes hidden causes easier to grasp. This makes improvement more concrete and the problem clearer.
Complexitydifferent
MediumLowLowLow
Timedifferent
2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional30-60 min45-90 min30-60 min
Participantsdifferent
Designers, developers as users, and facilitation3-103-103-12
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop
Outputdifferent
Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsStar-Shaped Question Map, Question List, Assumption ListLotus Diagram, Idea Themes, ShortlistReverse Ideas, Risk Themes, Solution Ideas
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
BrainstormingIdeationWorkshopDiscovery
BrainstormingIdeationCreativityDivergenceWorkshop
BrainstormingIdeationCreativityRisk
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