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Criterion
Paper illustration with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Four paper stations connect system purpose, quality goals, risk cards and focused investigation with a target and gap profile.
Architecture
LASR (Lightweight Approach for Software Reviews)
A/B Testing workspace showing the question, observations, and next decision.
Growth
A/B Testing
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.LASR helps development teams identify where their software falls short of important quality goals and which improvements to consider. A small group with existing system knowledge can make an initial assessment and investigate open questions in more detail.When two variants compete, discussions quickly decide by taste rather than effect. A/B Testing checks behavior under controlled conditions and separates real improvement from chance or expectation effects.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
HighMediumHighLow
Timedifferent
Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope3–4 h for initial assessment; preparation and deeper analysis additional1-4 Wochen1-5 Tage
Participantsdifferent
Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting1 or a small team; particularly suitable for 3–4 people1-6Nutzertraffic
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncAsyncAsync
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 alternativesLean Mission Statement describing the software’s purpose, Prioritized quality goals and evaluation criteria, Risks and estimated gaps against quality goals, More closely examined findings and open checksExperiment results, Decision log, Learning summaryInterest Metrics, Conversion Signal, Learning Note
Tagsno overlap
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
ArchitectureQualityRiskAssessmentLean
ExperimentsGrowthAnalyticsValidation
ValidationExperimentsDemandGrowth
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