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Criterion
Paper illustration of Cost of Delay with its method-specific working model.
Delivery
Cost of Delay
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Paper illustration of an assumption matrix with prioritized test cards
Decision Making
Assumption Surfacing
Purposedifferent
Helps clarify scope, order, and delivery flow in concrete terms. It makes work, constraints, and sequence manageable. The result is captured as a Cost of Delay table and prioritization sequence.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.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.
Complexitydifferent
HighMediumLow
Timedifferent
90-180 min2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional45-90 min
Participantsdifferent
3-8Designers, developers as users, and facilitation2-8
Formatdifferent
WorkshopWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
CoD Table, Prioritization SequencePrioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsAssumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan
Tagsno overlap
PrioritizationDeliveryEconomicsDecision
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery
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Often compared together

Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.

Paper illustration of a calm four-quadrant Assumption Map with hypothesis cards and emphasis on important assumptions with little evidence.
Product Discovery
Assumption Mapping
Paper illustration of a calibrated five-by-five risk matrix with response cards.
Decision Making
Risk Matrix
Paper illustration for Risk Storming.
Architecture
Risk Storming
Paper illustration of Riskiest Assumption Test with a method-specific labelled workspace.
Product Discovery
Riskiest Assumption Test