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| Criterion |  Architecture Views and Beyond |  Decision Making Trade-off Analysis |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |  Architecture Request for Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | Views and Beyond organizes architecture into several views so no single diagram has to do everything at once. This makes it possible to choose the representation that fits the stakeholder's question. | 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. | An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable. | An RFC clarifies architecture context, options, and consequences. It structures technical context, alternatives, tradeoffs, open questions, and review feedback, and captures the result as an RFC document, reviewer comments, and a decision rationale. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Low | Medium |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Tage | 45-120 min | 15-45 min | 1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung |
Participantsdifferent | 1-4 | 2-8 | 1-3 | 3-20 Reviewer |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Async | Async |
Outputdifferent | Architecture Views, Cross-view Notes, Rationale | Trade-off Matrix, Criteria List, Decision Rationale, Accepted Downsides | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale | RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets |
Tagsno overlap | DocumentationStakeholdersArchitecture | TradeoffsDecisionCriteriaOptions | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance | ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance |