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| Criterion |  Decision Making Decision Tree |  Engineering Golden Path |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Architecture Request for Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | For decisions with follow-on paths and dependencies, a linear comparison is often not enough. A Decision Tree shows how options branch under conditions and which consequences hang on each branch. | When teams need a reliable default path for frequent use, sprawl quickly emerges without any guiding logic. Golden Path bundles the preferred path so good practice becomes easy and deviation becomes deliberate. | 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. | An RFC clarifies architecture context, options, and consequences. It structures technical context, alternatives, tradeoffs, open questions, and review feedback, and captures the result as an RFC document, reviewer comments, and a decision rationale. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30-90 min | 1-3 Tage Setup, laufend | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 2-8 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 3-20 Reviewer |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Decision Tree, Option Map, Assumption List | Golden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets |
Tagsno overlap | DecisionTreeOptions | EngineeringProductivityGovernance | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance |