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Criterion
Paper illustration of Request for Comments (RFC) with its method-specific working model.
Architecture
Request for Comments
A hypothetical failure makes concrete risks, signals, and fitting mitigations visible.
Decision Making
Pre-Mortem
Paper illustration for Smoke Test.
Product Discovery
Smoke Test
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.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.When demand only needs to be roughly verified, it tests interest with minimal effort. It measures whether people would take a next step at all.
Complexitydifferent
MediumLowLow
Timedifferent
1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung20–45 min1-5 Tage
Participantsdifferent
3-20 ReviewerSmall cross-functional groupNutzertraffic
Formatdifferent
AsyncWorkshopAsync
Outputdifferent
RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or ticketsRisk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption logInterest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance
RiskDecisionFailurePlanning
ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.

Paper illustration of a calm four-quadrant Assumption Map with hypothesis cards and emphasis on important assumptions with little evidence.
Product Discovery
Assumption Mapping
Paper illustration for Fake Door Test
Product Discovery
Fake Door Test
Paper illustration for Risk Storming.
Architecture
Risk Storming