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| Criterion |  Engineering Golden Path |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Decision Making Argument Mapping |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | 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. | When statements, evidence, and counterarguments get mixed up, a debate quickly loses its structure. Argument Mapping breaks a thesis down into its reasoning and makes visible what it really rests on. | An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Tage Setup, laufend | 45-120 min | 1-3 h | 15-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 2-8 | 2-8 | 1-8 | 1-3 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Golden Path Guide, Templates, Quality Checks | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Argument Map, Evidence Gaps, Decision Rationale | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale |
Tagsno overlap | EngineeringProductivityGovernance | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | SensemakingDecisionRationale | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance |