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Criterion	Architecture SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)	Operations Fishbone Diagram	Operations Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
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 a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers.	For a process, product, or service with noticeable failure risks, the method assesses possible failure modes in advance. It directs attention to combinations of occurrence, effect, and detectability.
Complexitydifferent	High	Low	High
Timedifferent	Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope	30-60 min	2-6 h
Participantsdifferent	Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting	2-8	3-10
Formatdifferent	Workshop + async	Workshop	Workshop
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 alternatives	Fishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog	FMEA Table, Risk Priority, Mitigation Actions
Tags1 shared	ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality	Root causeQualityOperations	RiskQualityOperationsRoot cause