Software Engineering Institute

This paper introduces a technical review approach that is a blend of a stakeholder-centric, scenario-based, architecture evaluation method such as the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), and an active design review (ADR) of design specifications. There is a need for a technical review of a design finer-grained than an architecture, but not yet completely documented. Such a review exposes the design to its user community of application programmers, and allows early feedback on the overall approach, before the design is institutionalized in a detailed specification. This paper describes a recently piloted software design review technique that we call Active Review for Intermediate Designs (ARID). A hybrid of ADRs and scenario-based methods such as the ATAM, ARID fills a niche in the spectrum of technical design techniques between architecture at one end, and design specification documents at the other.