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Criterion
Paper illustration of a branching impact map with a Why goal at the root, actor circles, How behavior changes and What options.
Product Strategy
Impact Mapping
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Paper illustration for Communication Plan
Delivery
Communication Plan
Purposedifferent
When a goal needs to be connected to several possible paths, it shows chains of impact instead of feature lists. It connects business goal, behavior change, and measures.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 many people need to be informed in parallel and messages would otherwise arrive unevenly or too late, a Communication Plan orders communication reliably. Channels, audiences, and cadences interlock so important information doesn't get lost.
Complexitydifferent
MediumMediumLow
Timedifferent
45-90 min2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional45-90 min
Participantsdifferent
3-8Designers, developers as users, and facilitation2-6
Formatdifferent
WorkshopWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Impact Map, Outcome Hypotheses, Delivery OptionsPrioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsCommunication Plan, Channel Matrix, Message Cadence
Tagsno overlap
OutcomesStrategyBehaviorPlanning
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
CommunicationStakeholdersDeliveryPlanning
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.

Architecture Communication Canvas method illustration showing its working structure
Architecture
Architecture Communication Canvas
Paper illustration for Alignment Mapping.
Facilitation
Alignment Mapping
Paper illustration: scenarios and architectural decisions are connected to identified risks.
Architecture
ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)