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Criterion
Four paper stations connect system purpose, quality goals, risk cards and focused investigation with a target and gap profile.
Architecture
LASR (Lightweight Approach for Software Reviews)
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Paper illustration of a Test Card with four fields for hypothesis, test, metric, and success threshold.
Product Discovery
Test Card
Paper illustration of a calm four-quadrant Assumption Map with hypothesis cards and emphasis on important assumptions with little evidence.
Product Discovery
Assumption Mapping
Purposedifferent
LASR helps development teams identify where their software falls short of important quality goals and which improvements to consider. A small group with existing system knowledge can make an initial assessment and investigate open questions in more detail.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.The Test Card turns a critical assumption into a testable claim and specifies in advance which result counts as success.When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first.
Complexitydifferent
MediumMediumLowMedium
Timedifferent
3–4 h for initial assessment; preparation and deeper analysis additional2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional20-35 min45-60 min
Participantsdifferent
1 or a small team; particularly suitable for 3–4 peopleDesigners, developers as users, and facilitation1-52-8
Formatsame
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Lean Mission Statement describing the software’s purpose, Prioritized quality goals and evaluation criteria, Risks and estimated gaps against quality goals, More closely examined findings and open checksPrioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsTest Card with a pre-set thresholdAssumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureQualityRiskAssessmentLean
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryHypothesis
AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation
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