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Selected:Assumption SurfacingArchitecture Decision RecordARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Assumption Mapping
| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable. | 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. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 15-45 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 1-3 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |