A Method for Strategic Scenario-Based Architecting

Abstract

Strategic decisions have to be made when long-lasting architectures for software-intensive systems are developed. It is a good idea to consider various changes in the business environment before the final system architecture is proposed. Since the future cannot be predicted accurately, strategic scenarios are a useful way of guiding the strategic decision-making process. Strategic scenarios can be defined as stories that describe plausible futures; they are particularly useful for guiding one's perception of the future.This paper presents our approach to the use of strategic scenarios for directing the strategic and tactical decision-making process when developing long-lasting system architectures. This approach was applied in a case study carried out in the medical imaging domain.

SmartCLIDE design pattern assistant: A decision‐tree based approach

“…Another popular approach in the architecture domain is the scenario‐based strategy. Ionita et al 30 used the strategic scenario‐based architecting in order to make decisions about the future architecture of a system. With this approach, there is continuous feedback regarding the future state of the system as the four main steps that were introduced run continuously in a circle.…”

Scenario‐based decision making for architectural variability in product families

“…Clearly defined business strategies will focus the architecting process in terms of features that should be added and the required level of quality for the new systems. For a concrete case study explaining in more details how to come from strategic scenarios to business strategies, and then down to the actual architecture scenarios, we refer to (Ionita et al 2005).…”