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Criterion
Paper illustration with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Paper illustration for Smoke Test.
Product Discovery
Smoke Test
Purposedifferent
SAAM helps teams judge an architecture’s suitability for selected tasks and changes. It is particularly useful for examining modifiability and comparing architecture alternatives with clear reasoning.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.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
HighMediumLow
Timedifferent
Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional1-5 Tage
Participantsdifferent
Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weightingDesigners, developers as users, and facilitationNutzertraffic
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncAsync
Outputdifferent
Domain functions mapped to components and connections, Quality attributes and evaluation criteria, Typical tasks and their effects on the architecture, Reasoned evaluation or comparison of alternativesPrioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsInterest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth
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Often compared together

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

Paper illustration for Fake Door Test
Product Discovery
Fake Door Test
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: scenarios and architectural decisions are connected to identified risks.
Architecture
ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)