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Selected:Dot VotingARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Consensus WorkshopSoftware Architecture Canvas
| Criterion | ![]() Facilitation Dot Voting | ![]() Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) | ![]() Facilitation Consensus Workshop | ![]() Architecture Software Architecture Canvas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a workshop has produced too many options and the group needs to condense quickly, dot voting makes preferences visible in a short time. It bundles individual votes into a solid signal for the next selection. | 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 group needs a solid decision without outvoting individual factions, a Consensus Workshop creates a negotiable common ground. It makes agreement, reservations, and open tensions discussable at the same time. | The Software Architecture Canvas reduces a system to the most important architecture decisions, constraints, and interfaces. It is useful when teams need a resilient overall picture quickly. |
Complexitydifferent | Low | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 5-15 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-3 h | 1-2 h |
Participantsdifferent | 3-20 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 5-30 | 3-10 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop |
Outputdifferent | Ranked list, Consensus signal, Shortlist | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Consensus Clusters, Theme Titles, Priority Areas | Architecture Canvas, Goals, Constraints, Quality Attributes |
Tagsno overlap | FacilitationVotingConsensusPrioritization | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | FacilitationConsensusWorkshopAlignment | CanvasArchitectureAlignmentWorkshop |



