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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)
Paper illustration for Decision Framing Workshop.
Decision Making
Decision Framing Workshop
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.When a decision is poorly framed, even good answers deliver little value. A Decision Framing Workshop sharpens the problem, goal, and boundaries before the actual weighing begins.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.
Complexitysame
MediumMediumMediumMedium
Timedifferent
45-90 min2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional60-120 min45-120 min
Participantsdifferent
2-8Designers, developers as users, and facilitation4-102-8
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 revisionsDecision Frame, Decision Question, Criteria List, Evidence PlanTrade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides
Tagsno overlap
DecisionCriteriaScoringTradeoffs
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
Decision framingAlignmentCriteriaOptions
TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions
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