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Criterion
A hypothetical failure makes concrete risks, signals, and fitting mitigations visible.
Decision Making
Pre-Mortem
Paper illustration: scenarios and architectural decisions are connected to identified risks.
Architecture
ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Architecture Communication Canvas method illustration showing its working structure
Architecture
Architecture Communication Canvas
Purposedifferent
In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures.ATAM helps teams weigh architecture decisions when quality goals compete. The team considers business goals, stakeholder expectations, and technical decisions together. The evaluation shows which risks need further investigation.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 Architecture Communication Canvas plans architecture communication so the right people receive the right message. The method turns technical complexity into deliberate communication design.
Complexitydifferent
LowHighMediumMedium
Timedifferent
20–45 minSeveral meetings plus preparation and analysis; total effort depends on scope2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional60-120 min
Participantsdifferent
Small cross-functional groupEvaluation team, architects, and relevant stakeholdersDesigners, developers as users, and facilitation2-8
Formatdifferent
WorkshopWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
Outputdifferent
Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption logPrioritized quality scenarios in a utility tree, Architecture risks with reasoning and assumptions, Sensitivity and trade-off points, Findings report with open investigationsPrioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsCommunication Canvas, Stakeholder Messages, Architecture Communication Plan
Tagsno overlap
RiskDecisionFailurePlanning
ArchitectureQualityRiskTradeoffsStakeholders
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
ArchitectureCommunicationStakeholdersCanvas
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