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Selected:Delphi MethodATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Alignment Mapping
| Criterion |  Decision Making Delphi Method |  Architecture ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method) |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Facilitation Alignment Mapping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When knowledge is distributed and direct dominance should be avoided, groups quickly fall under the sway of their opinion leaders. The Delphi Method gathers assessments iteratively and gradually brings expert judgments closer together. | 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. | 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 several people work toward one goal but hold different mental maps, Alignment Mapping makes the discrepancies visible. It arranges goals, assumptions, and priorities so shared direction becomes verifiable. |
Complexitydifferent | High | High | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen | Several meetings plus preparation and analysis; total effort depends on scope | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-2 h |
Participantsdifferent | 6-30 Experten | Evaluation team, architects, and relevant stakeholders | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 4-12 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Expert Forecast, Consensus Range, Assumption Notes | Prioritized quality scenarios in a utility tree, Architecture risks with reasoning and assumptions, Sensitivity and trade-off points, Findings report with open investigations | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Alignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions |
Tagsno overlap | ForecastingExpertsDecisionStrategy | ArchitectureQualityRiskTradeoffsStakeholders | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation |