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| Criterion |  Engineering Fault Isolation |  Architecture C4 Model |  Product Discovery Assumption Mapping |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | In technical failures, the visible symptom often gets mixed up with the actual cause. Fault Isolation narrows the fault space and progressively reduces which part of the system is truly affected. | The C4 Model makes a system legible across several resolution levels, from context down to code. It suits situations where different audiences need to understand the same architecture from different altitudes. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | 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. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | 30-180 min | 1-4 h | 45-60 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional |
Participantsdifferent | 1-6 | 1-5 | 2-8 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Fault Isolation Map, Test Log, Excluded Hypotheses, Narrowed Fault Area | Context Diagram, Container Diagram, Component Diagram | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions |
Tagsno overlap | TroubleshootingDiagnosisEngineering | ArchitectureCommunicationVisualization | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks |