I really like that you’re encouraging (agile) architects to document alternatives considered but ruled out and why. This may seem counter to the agile philosophy of minimalist documentation–there is pushback on documenting at all, so it’d be reasonable to ask why we should document approaches we decided against. But it is not counter to _being_ agile. It’s not agile to revisit/rehash decisions, simply because… the collective “we” forgot, someone new came into the room, etc.

Jeff Tyree and Art Ackerman’s “Architecture Decisions: Demystifying Architecture” http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/mags/so/&toc=comp/mags/so/2005/02/s2toc.xml&DOI=10.1109/MS.2005.27 also calls for documenting alternatives not chosen.

Anshu Gaind has an architecture decision template that I also like because it explicitly identifies drawbacks of the approach, so that the discussion of downsides to our chosen approach is not swept off the table but rather addressed head on: http://www.bredemeyer.com/pdf_files/WhitePapers/Key%20Decisions%20Template.doc

We also encourage architects to “connect the dots,” tying decisions to their rationale–business strategy and architecture goals or lessons from our experience. The outcome of our thinking shows up in the code, but not the thought processes, the demands and drivers, the experiences, etc. that we were balancing as we made the architecture decisions. See http://www.bredemeyer.com/HotSpot/20040428EASoapBox.htm

http://www.rgoarchitects.com/nblog/2007/06/11/AgileArchitectureAndDocumentation.aspx
http://www.rgoarchitects.com/nblog/2007/05/13/EvolvingArchitectures.aspx

I have some questions that need to be addressed

1. when some one have talent and can grow in any of the dimensions and he has not mention his designation and having good skill set of software architech, it is fair to reject any CV with out desination even he have exellent skill set.
2. What is need to now…to convince our CEO of our company.he is basically booky knowldge man and he could not get the point of tech knoeldge
so please give good defination of s/w architec did he need desination give me suggestion, so that i can convince my CEO
thanks
Regards
Sanjib

http://e-cio.org/lea_book.htm

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/cio/lea/archives/distinguish-ea-from-business-transformation-8704

This subject has been a hot topic in IT community. Cutter IT Journal recently call for paper on The CIO Today: Technology Manager or Strategic Visionary? The sad part is that EA get a long way to become mature, we are still at the stage to identify the direction. The good part is that we are lucky to be part of this evolution.

In my openion, an Enterprise Architect is a facilitator as you said it means to honorably, responsibly, seek out the value that is compelling to our community, build a shared vision, build passion and commitment to attaining the vision, and lead the decisions and the action that realizes the vision.

An entry in my blog have also touched this subject . Enclosed is the URL for your reference.

The link :

http://e-cio.org/lea_book.htm

I have come up a book propsal in

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/cio/lea/archives/distinguish-ea-from-business-transformation-8704

Please review and comment.

Thanks.

As an example, for the past 6 weeks, I’ve been working with a company which is in the planning stages for a next generation cardiac defibrillator/monitor. Even though this product replaces an existing 7 year old product, the vision and planning activities involve people from clinical, product marketing, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, software engineering, human factors, manufacturing, field sales, support, and finance.

When we were first brought in, we conducted interviews with 24 different stakeholders. Interestingly, everyone was in full agreement that they needed to build a defibrillator/monitor, and everyone had a good appreciation for what that involved (most having done it several times before). However, the group’s vision lacked alignment. The general manager had been pushing for a low cost unit. His boss felt that cost was important, but time to market was more important. The Marketing director knew that a major competitor had just introduced a new product and pushed for competitive features, especially in the area of hospital data management.

In this particular case, I believe that a key to gaining alignment will be a financial model which illustrates the tradeoffs between a 1% change in market share vs. a $50 decrease in parts cost, vs. a 3 month delay in getting to market. Vision usually requires tradeoffs, and this means getting someone to loosen the grip on a perspective and belief system that they hold close to their hearts.

BTW, 30 years ago, if I had any idea that my path as a software engineer, architect, and consultant would lead in this direction, I would have paid a lot more attention in psychology and sociology classes!

Charlie

Leaders inspire and set direction. Early on, direction is set in terms of vision. So a leader needs to ensure that vision input is sought from key stakeholders, and that a vision is articulated, championed, and bought-into.

A more specific answer begs more specific context. For example, if you mean the vision document for a product, then this is best created by the multi-functional team responsible for the product, led by that team’s leader. The software architect may or may not be the team leader in this situation. But the software architect will lead on the software architecture vision that may be a component of the product vision, or may complement the product vision.

Alternatively, if the architecture is for a product family (or software product line), then the architecture has a lifecycle of its own. This begins with vision, and the lead architect will be responsible for creating, selling, and sustaining the vision, with the help of others on the architecture team, and the extended team (future product marketing, key developers, etc.).