Abstract. This paper presents the analysis and key findings of a survey about dealing with non-functional requirements (NFRs) among architects. We find that, as long as the architect is aware of the importance of NFRs, they do not adversely affect project success, with one exception: highly business critical modifiability tends to be detrimental to project success, even when the architect is aware of it. IT projects where modifiability is perceived to have low business criticality lead to consistently high customer satisfaction. Our conclusion is that modifiability deserves more attention than it is getting now, especially because in general it is quantified and verified considerably less than other NFRs. Furthermore, IT projects that applied NFR verification techniques relatively early in development were more successful on average than IT projects that did not apply verification techniques (or applied it relatively late in development).
We propose to view architecting as a risk-and cost management discipline. This point of view helps architects identify the key concerns to address in their decision making, by providing a simple, relatively objective way to assess architectural significance. It also helps business stakeholders to align the architect's activities and results with their own goals. We examine the consequences of this point of view on the architecture process. The point of view is the basis of RCDA, the Risk-and Cost Driven Architecture approach. So far, more than 150 architects have received RCDA training. For a majority of the trainees, RCDA has a significant positive impact on their architecting work.
A lot has been said and written about the relationship between agile development and architecture. As long ago as four years back, IEEE Software had a special issue on it. It looks like the debate is starting to settle down: we see agile methods that include architecting, like the Scaled Agile Framework, and we see architecting frameworks like TOGAF add agile elements. As the dust is settling down, what have we learned? At CGI 1 , architects have learned to use economic drivers like risk and cost to enhance the agility of their work. Below are five pieces of advice that architects can use to become effective in an agile world, without having to implement a new method or framework. They describe changes in attitude or behavior rather than complete practices or principles, and so are easy to digest and apply. The ideas are based on a solution architecting approach called Risk-and Cost-Driven Architecture. Core to the approach is the use of risk and cost to determine the architectural significance of concerns. Agility is achieved by keeping the architecture lightweight , addressing only those concerns that are especially risky or costly to address. A risk-and cost-driven backlog of architectural concerns balances the generally value-driven product backlog to achieve "just enough anticipation" in the evolution of software solutions.
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