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Criterion
Paper illustration with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Paper illustration of a four-quadrant grid with tasks sorted by importance and urgency and translated into actions.
Decision Making
Eisenhower Matrix
Design sheets and interface cards connect to jointly written pseudocode with highlighted unresolved questions.
Architecture
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)
Paper illustration for Eat the Frog
Operations
Eat the Frog
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.It separates true priorities from noise so it becomes clear what should be done now, scheduled, delegated, or dropped.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.The method protects energy and attention for the task that creates the largest progress and is often postponed.
Complexitydifferent
HighLowMediumLow
Timedifferent
Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope15-30 min2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional15-90 min daily
Participantsdifferent
Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting1-6Designers, developers as users, and facilitation1
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + 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 alternativesEisenhower Matrix, Action List, Delegation NotesPrioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisionsPriority Task, Completion Note, Daily Focus
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
PrioritizationFocusTasks
ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks
PrioritizationProductivityFocusExecution
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