A map built from inside the problem
StratoAtlas started as a personal tool — a way to see the full territory of design methodologies before choosing one. It became a research project when the gaps became more interesting than the methods.
The origin
After 12+ years in enterprise SaaS and complex digital product systems, a recurring pattern became hard to ignore: teams were applying the right methods to the wrong level of problem. Design Thinking at the architectural level. User research where systemic contradiction was the actual issue. Iteration where the root cause was structural.
The map started as a grid on paper. The question: if I can see all the methods at once, where do they cluster, and where is there nothing?
What it revealed
The clustering was expected. The gaps were not. At the intersection of Resolution and the architectural system levels, the map was almost empty. TRIZ sat there — built for physical systems and never adapted for digital product architecture.
This confirmed what years of practice suggested: product design has tools for discovering problems and generating solutions, but almost nothing for resolving architectural contradictions without compromise.
CDPA — what the gap led to
Contradiction-Driven Product Architecture (CDPA) is a methodology being developed in response to the gap the map identified. It adapts systemic and TRIZ-derived thinking to digital product systems.
CDPA is not yet part of StratoAtlas as a documented method. It will be when it is reproducible without the author. That threshold has not been reached yet.