WICSA 2008 WS1 Architecture And Organisation
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WS1 - Architecture and Organisation
Session Chairs: Paul Clements, Eltjo Poort and Mark Klein
Tuesday 19th February - 13:30 - 17:30
Contributions
- Assessing the Value of Software Architecture. Pasi Ojala
- Evaluating The Software Architecture Competence of Organizations. Len Bass, Paul Clements, Rick Kazman, Mark Klein
- Importance of Software Architecture during Release Planning. Markus Lindgren, Christer Norstram, Anders Wall, Rikard Land
- Ready! Set! Go! An Action Research Agenda for Software Architecture. Henrik B Christensen, Klaus M Hansen, Kari R Schougaard
Working Session Details
Welcome to the working session on Architecture and Organization
Goal
The guiding principle for this working session is quite straightforward: The potential value of software architecture will only be reliably realized if architecture-centric practices are appropriately operationalized within an organization. Therefore the goal is to generate concrete ideas for how to "Assess the state of architecture-centric practice throughout an organization."
Strategy
To achieve this goal we held discussions in both small group and large group settings focusing on answering three sets of questions:
(1) What does it mean for an organization to be proficient at architecture-centric practices? Architecture is not the end game; it is to facilitate building systems that serve their business goals. One paper defined organizational architecture in terms of competence. We will use this definition as a starting point and refine it.
(2) Given the definition generated in (1) the next question we will look at is: What are the linchpins for being proficient at architecture-centric development? That is, what are the key practices and mappings of practices onto organizational constructs, that are needed to reap the value of software architecture. One paper focuses on release planning as an important practice. This is just one example. There are many.
(3) What are the key indicators of organizational proficiency or lack of proficiency? What questions do you ask of whom in an organization? What can be measured?
Results
Four workgroups were formed, each approaching these questions from a different angle. The feedback presentations of each workgroup can be found in the links:
WG1 Architecture competence in terms of Value
WG2 Architecture competence in terms of Product Planning
WG3 Architecture competence in terms of Practices
WG4 Architecture competence according to you
During the discussion, the following five topics were found to be important across all workgroups:
- Business (b.alignment, b.value, b.strategy, b.needs, b.language...)
- The architect is a communicator
- Viewing architecture as an investment
- Giving architects the proper authority (seniority, salary, recognition,...)
- Finding the right balance (there can actually be too much architecture)
