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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 for Trade-off Analysis.
Decision Making
Trade-off Analysis
Paper illustration of an assumption matrix with prioritized test cards
Decision Making
Assumption Surfacing
Paper illustration of MVP Test Matrix with a method-specific labelled workspace.
Product Discovery
MVP Test Matrix
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.With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects.Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it.When several minimal variants compete to answer the same question, it makes comparing and choosing between them cleaner. It separates problem, assumption, solution, and evidence. The result is captured as a Test Matrix and a Test Plan.
Complexitydifferent
MediumMediumLowMedium
Timedifferent
2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional45-120 min45-90 min45-75 min
Participantsdifferent
Designers, developers as users, and facilitation2-82-82-8
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop
Outputdifferent
Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsTrade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted DownsidesAssumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning PlanTest Matrix, Test Plan
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions
AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery
ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryOptions
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