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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)
Paper illustration of Stakeholder Salience Model with its method-specific working model.
Facilitation
Stakeholder Salience Model
Paper illustration for Alignment Mapping.
Facilitation
Alignment Mapping
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.When stakeholders appear to matter very differently, the Stakeholder Salience Model rates their actual priority through power, legitimacy, and urgency. It turns individual contributions into a visible selection. The result is captured as a Salience diagram and a class-based strategy.When several people work toward one goal but hold different mental maps, Alignment Mapping makes the discrepancies visible. It arranges goals, assumptions, and priorities so shared direction becomes verifiable.
Complexitydifferent
LowHighMediumMedium
Timedifferent
20–45 minSeveral meetings plus preparation and analysis; total effort depends on scope60-90 min1-2 h
Participantsdifferent
Small cross-functional groupEvaluation team, architects, and relevant stakeholders3-64-12
Formatdifferent
WorkshopWorkshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop
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 investigationsSalience Diagram, Strategy per ClassAlignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions
Tagsno overlap
RiskDecisionFailurePlanning
ArchitectureQualityRiskTradeoffsStakeholders
StakeholdersFacilitationAlignmentGovernance
AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation
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