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Selected:SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)Risk StormingARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Assumption Mapping
| Criterion |  Architecture SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method) |  Architecture Risk Storming |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Product Discovery Assumption 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. | Helps clarify architecture context, options, and consequences in concrete terms. It organizes technical context, alternatives, and consequences. The result is captured as an Annotated Diagram, a Prioritized Risk List, and an Action Backlog. | 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. | When assumptions still sit unordered in the room, it weighs uncertainty against leverage. It makes visible which hypotheses should be checked first. |
Complexitydifferent | High | Low | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | Preparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope | 60-90 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 45-60 min |
Participantsdifferent | Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting | 4-12 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 2-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop + 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 alternatives | Annotated Diagram, Prioritized Risk List, Action Backlog | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Assumption map, Test backlog, Risk ranking |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality | RiskArchitectureWorkshopValidation | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | AssumptionsRiskExperimentsValidation |