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| Criterion | ![]() Architecture Request for Comments | ![]() Product Discovery Assumption Mapping | ![]() Product Discovery Test Card | ![]() Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | 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. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. | The Test Card turns a critical assumption into a testable claim and specifies in advance which result counts as success. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung | 45-60 min | 20-35 min | 45-90 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-20 Reviewer | 2-8 | 1-5 | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking | Test Card with a pre-set threshold | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation | ExperimentsValidationDiscoveryHypothesis | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery |



