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| Criterion | ![]() Agile Scrum | ![]() Decision Making Trade-off Analysis | ![]() Decision Making Pre-Mortem | ![]() Architecture ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When a team needs to work in a fixed delivery rhythm, it stabilizes cadence, responsibility, and feedback loops. It makes collaboration reliable across sprint boundaries. | With limited resources, quality, speed, cost, and risk almost always compete with each other. Trade-off Analysis makes these tensions explicit and prevents decisions from producing hidden side effects. | In early initiatives with many uncertainties, planning quickly turns too optimistic. A pre-mortem makes the expected failure visible in advance and sharpens the view of causes, gaps, and countermeasures. | ATAM helps teams weigh architecture decisions when quality goals compete. The team considers business goals, stakeholder expectations, and technical decisions together. The evaluation shows which risks need further investigation. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | High |
Timedifferent | 1-4 Wochen je Sprint, laufend | 45-120 min | 20–45 min | Several meetings plus preparation and analysis; total effort depends on scope |
Participantsdifferent | 3-10 (Scrum Team) | 2-8 | Small cross-functional group | Evaluation team, architects, and relevant stakeholders |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment, Sprint Goal | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | Risk list, Mitigation plan, Assumption log | Prioritized quality scenarios in a utility tree, Architecture risks with reasoning and assumptions, Sensitivity and trade-off points, Findings report with open investigations |
Tagsno overlap | AgileIterationCadence | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | RiskDecisionFailurePlanning | ArchitectureQualityRiskTradeoffsStakeholders |



