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Criterion
A hypothetical failure makes concrete risks, signals, and fitting mitigations visible.
Decision Making
Pre-Mortem
Paper illustration for Trade-off Analysis.
Decision Making
Trade-off Analysis
Paper illustration of Request for Comments (RFC) with its method-specific working model.
Architecture
Request for Comments
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.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.An RFC clarifies architecture context, options, and consequences. It structures technical context, alternatives, tradeoffs, open questions, and review feedback, and captures the result as an RFC document, reviewer comments, and a decision rationale.
Complexitydifferent
LowMediumMedium
Timedifferent
20–45 min45-120 min1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung
Participantsdifferent
Small cross-functional group2-83-20 Reviewer
Formatdifferent
WorkshopWorkshop + asyncAsync
Outputdifferent
Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption logTrade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted DownsidesRFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets
Tags1 shared
RiskDecisionFailurePlanning
TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions
ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance
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Often compared together

Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.

Paper illustration: scenarios and architectural decisions are connected to identified risks.
Architecture
ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)
Paper illustration for Constraint Analysis.
Decision Making
Constraint Analysis
Paper illustration of a decision table with criteria rows, weighted ratings, and a narrowly leading alternative.
Decision Making
Decision Matrix
Paper illustration of two considered options leading to a decision record with a marked status and visible consequences.
Architecture
Architecture Decision Record