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| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Business Strategy TOWS Matrix |  Product Strategy Impact Mapping |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 TOWS Matrix connects internal strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats into action-oriented strategies. It goes a step further than a pure stocktaking. | When a goal needs to be connected to several possible paths, it shows chains of impact instead of feature lists. It connects business goal, behavior change, and measures. | When an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-2 h | 45-90 min | 30-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 3-10 | 3-8 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | TOWS Matrix, Strategic Options, Priority Actions | Impact Map, Outcome Hypotheses, Delivery Options | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | StrategyAnalysisOptions | OutcomesStrategyBehaviorPlanning | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions |