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Criterion
Paper illustration with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Anonymous individual judgments pass through feedback loops to form a distribution.
Decision Making
Delphi Method
Paper illustration for Alignment Mapping.
Facilitation
Alignment Mapping
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.When knowledge is distributed and direct dominance should be avoided, groups quickly fall under the sway of their opinion leaders. The Delphi Method gathers assessments iteratively and gradually brings expert judgments closer together.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
HighHighMedium
Timedifferent
Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope1-4 Wochen1-2 h
Participantsdifferent
Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting6-30 Experten4-12
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncAsyncWorkshop
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 alternativesExpert Forecast, Consensus Range, Assumption NotesAlignment Map, Open Issues, Decision Questions
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
ForecastingExpertsDecisionStrategy
AlignmentStakeholdersStrategyFacilitation
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Methods with strong topical overlap with the current selection, not yet in the comparison.

Stakeholder Mapping
Facilitation
Stakeholder Mapping
Paper illustration for 3-Circle Venn Diagram
Facilitation
3-Circle Venn Diagram
Paper illustration: scenarios and architectural decisions are connected to identified risks.
Architecture
ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)
Paper illustration of the Force Field Analysis working structure.
Decision Making
Force Field Analysis