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Criterion
Visual Management workspace showing the question, observations, and next decision.
Operations
Visual Management
Paper illustration with architecture components and concrete change tasks for comparison.
Architecture
SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
Paper illustration for Kepner-Tregoe
Operations
Kepner-Tregoe
Paper fishbone diagram with a measurable effect at the head and six labeled cause branches.
Operations
Fishbone Diagram
Purposedifferent
With high tempo and many parallel topics, the method makes status, deviations, and priorities visible at a glance. It reduces search effort and prevents what matters from getting lost in daily work.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.For a disturbance that's hard to pin down, the method cleanly separates problem, cause, and decision. It reduces mixing when symptoms allow several interpretations.When a problem has several possible contributing factors, the method sorts causes by cause areas. It prevents an initial hunch from blocking the view of other plausible drivers.
Complexitydifferent
LowHighHighLow
Timedifferent
OngoingPreparation, scenario analysis, and findings review; effort depends on scope2-8 h30-60 min
Participantsdifferent
1-20Architecture experts and stakeholders for scenarios and weighting2-82-8
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshop
Outputdifferent
Visual Board, Status Indicators, Exception CuesDomain functions mapped to components and connections, Quality attributes and evaluation criteria, Typical tasks and their effects on the architecture, Reasoned evaluation or comparison of alternativesProblem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Risk PlanFishbone Diagram, Cause Categories, Investigation Backlog
Tagsno overlap
SignalsOperationsVisual management
ArchitectureChangeAnalysisComparisonQuality
Problem solvingRoot causeDecisionOperations
Root causeQualityOperations
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