Systematic Architectural Decisions

Management

A Process-based Approach

Ana Dragomir

Horst Lichter

Tiberiu Marian Budau

WICSA 2014, Sydney

07.04.2014

Roadmap

Introduction

More than just design!

Software Architecture = {Elements, Form, Rationale}

Rationale is usually embodied in architecture decisions (ADs)

ADs should be explicit and documented for future reference

Became a reality in the industry also!

Motivation

Our industry cooperation partner documents ADs

Benefits are company-wide acknowledged

But…improvements were necessary

Are ADs well communicated? Are ADs easily retrievable?

Is our decision process good enough?

How does an external observerperceive it?

How good are we,

compared to the state of the art?

How can we improve?

Goals

Analyze the current decision making process

Identify improvement potentials

Propose an enhanced concept for decision making

Analysis

Analyze the current decision making process

Initial meeting

Analysis of ADs repositories of two large projects (45000 and 9000 IT person days)

12 follow-up discussions (semi-structured)

Identify improvement potentials

Propose an enhanced concept for decision making

Current Process

possibly ask others

Well established template:

• Title

• Problem description

• Identified alternatives

• Prioritized criteria

• Quantification

• Chosen alternative

• Invoked stakeholders

• Derived requirements

• Related decisions, etc.

• Several mediums

• Many inconsistencies

Remarks

The “nature” of the ADs was different then expected

<10% contained component diagrams or lines and boxes

Inter-decision relations are almost never documented

When asked if useful, the architects were reluctant

“Implies” received the most acknowledgement

The industry is behind the state of the art

Alternatives not only identified, but also semi-subjectively quantified

However…much documented knowledge, little reuse

Many inconsistencies (even within the same project)

Rudimentary process

Goals

Analyze the current decision making process

Identify improvement potentials

Propose an enhanced concept for decision making

Improvement Potentials

ADs should be …

documented in a central location documented based on an enforced model

easily retrievable “search all decisions of the PROJECT PRJ11 that affect the COMPONENT

CRM and violate the COMPANY-GUIDELINE CG10”

easy to be communicated Push mechanisms Subscribe mechanisms – “notify me when decisions in the context of

PROJECT PRJ11 are made”

learned from Active/passive feedback

Goals

Analyze the current decision making process

Identify improvement potentials

Propose an enhanced concept for decision making

Improved process

Conclusions

Analysis of the current state of the practice

The situation is much better than expected but…

Improvement potentials were found

A process-oriented approach to boost informal learning was proposed

Future work

Capitalize on existing informal learning techniques

Develop metrics and dashboards to aid in the AD management process.

Tool support

Thank you!!!

ADs should be … documented in a central location documented based on an enforced model

easily retrievable easy to be communicated learned from active/passive feedback