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Selected:Assumption SurfacingARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Pre-MortemATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)
| Criterion |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Decision Making Pre-Mortem |  Architecture ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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. | 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. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. | ATAM helps teams weigh architecture decisions when quality goals compete. The team considers business goals, stakeholder expectations, and technical decisions together. The evaluation shows which risks need further investigation. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 45-90 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 20–45 min | Several meetings plus preparation and analysis; total effort depends on scope |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | Small cross-functional group | Evaluation team, architects, and relevant stakeholders |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Prioritized quality scenarios in a utility tree, Architecture risks with reasoning and assumptions, Sensitivity and trade-off points, Findings report with open investigations |
Tagsno overlap | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ArchitectureQualityRiskTradeoffsStakeholders |