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Criterion
Paper illustration of a decision table with criteria rows, weighted ratings, and a narrowly leading alternative.
Decision Making
Decision Matrix
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Architecture Inception Canvas method illustration showing its working structure
Architecture
Architecture Inception Canvas
Paper illustration for Trade-off Analysis.
Decision Making
Trade-off Analysis
Purposedifferent
When several options collide with several criteria, comparison quickly becomes subjective. A Decision Matrix makes the trade-off visible and brings weighting, criteria, and options into a shared logic.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 Architecture Inception Canvas bundles the first architecture questions into a compact decision picture. It fits when an initiative is still in motion but still needs clear guardrails.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.
Complexitydifferent
MediumMediumLowMedium
Timedifferent
45-90 min2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional1-2 h45-120 min
Participantsdifferent
2-8Designers, developers as users, and facilitation3-82-8
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Decision Matrix, Scoring Rationale, Selected OptionPrioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsInception Canvas, Risks, Goal List, Open QuestionsTrade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides
Tagsno overlap
DecisionCriteriaScoringTradeoffs
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
AlignmentArchitectureCanvas
TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions
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