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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)
Paper illustration for Root Cause Analysis.
Operations
Root Cause 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.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 a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another.
Complexitydifferent
HighMediumMedium
Timedifferent
Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope3–4 h for initial assessment; preparation and deeper analysis additional1-4 h
Participantsdifferent
Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting1 or a small team; particularly suitable for 3–4 people3-8
Formatsame
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + async
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 checksProblem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan
Tags1 shared
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
ArchitectureQualityRiskAssessmentLean
Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident
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Often compared together

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

Paper illustration for 8D Problem Solving.
Operations
8D Problem Solving
Paper illustration: scenarios and architectural decisions are connected to identified risks.
Architecture
ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method)
Paper illustration for Change Analysis.
Operations
Change Analysis