Reducing Architectural Knowledge Vaporization by Applying the Repertory Grid Technique

Information and Software Technology

Lytra

et al. 2016

Self Cite

Context: Many software architectural decisions are group decisions rather than decisions made by individuals. Consensus in a group of decision makers increases the acceptance of a decision among decision makers and their confidence in that decision. Furthermore, going through the process of reaching consensus means that decision makers understand better the decision (including the decision topic, decision options, rationales, and potential outcomes). Little guidance exists on how to increase consensus in group architectural decision making.Objective: We evaluate how a newly proposed process (named GADGET) helps architects increase consensus when making group architectural decisions. Specifically, we investigate how well GADGET increases consensus in group architectural decision making, by understanding its practical applicability, and by comparing GADGET against group architectural decision making without using any prescribed approach.Method: We conducted two empirical studies. First, we conducted an exploratory case study to understand the practical applicability of GADGET in industry. We investigated whether there is a need to increase consensus, the effort and benefits of GADGET, and potential improvements for GADGET. Second, we conducted an experiment with 113 students from three universities to compare GADGET against group architectural decision making without using any prescribed approach.Results: GADGET helps decision makers increase their consensus, captures knowledge on architectural decisions, clarifies the different points of view of different decision makers on the decision, and increases the focus of the group discussions about a decision. From the experiment, we obtained causal evidence that GADGET increases consensus better than group architectural decision making without using any prescribed approach.Conclusions: There is a need to increase consensus in group architectural decisions. GADGET helps inexperienced architects increase consensus in group architectural decision making, and provides additional benefits, such as capturing rationale of decisions. Future work is needed to understand and improve other aspects of group architectural decision making.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gadget Rootsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gadget Rootsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6. Analyze the matrix of alternatives, concerns, and ratings to indicate the most preferable alternative (for detailed examples, see [8][9][10]12]). …”

Section: Gadget Rootsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Empirical evaluation of a process to increase consensus in group architectural decision making

Information and Software Technology

Lytra

et al. 2016

Self Cite

show abstract

“…In our previous work, we proposed an initial version of REGAIN (REpertory Grid for capturing ArchItectural decisioNs, which is presented in detail in Sec. 2), an approach which utilizes the Repertory Grid technique for capturing architectural decisions [11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validating and Improving a Knowledge Acquisition Approach for Architectural Decisions

Avgeriou

Int. J. Soft. Eng. Knowl. Eng.

2014

Self Cite

Software architects make architectural decisions such as choosing architecture patterns or frameworks. Capturing architectural decisions reduces evolution costs for software systems. Existing approaches overlook the challenge of capturing tacit knowledge about architectural decisions. Previously, we proposed the REGAIN approach to capture tacit knowledge about architectural decisions. REGAIN is based on the Repertory Grid technique, a powerful knowledge acquisition approach from knowledge engineering. However, REGAIN lacked industrial validation. Therefore, in this paper, we initially present a study to ensure that REGAIN meets the needs of industrial architects. We interviewed 16 architects who indicated REGAIN advantages such as systematic decision-making support. Also, architects indicated improvement opportunities, in particular tool support and the possibility to prioritize concerns that are used to evaluate decision alternatives. Therefore, we conducted an additional study to evaluate two approaches for prioritizing concerns: pairwise-comparisons and the hundred-dollar approach. We conducted an experiment with 30 graduate students to compare the two prioritization approaches. Based on the results of the experiment, we added the hundred-dollar approach to REGAIN. Moreover, based on the study with architects and the experiment with students, we implemented open source tool support for REGAIN, which architects can use to capture architectural decisions.

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Difficulty of Architectural Decisions – A Survey with Professional Architects

Avgeriou

2013

Software Architecture