Modeling and Improving Information Flows in the Development of Large Business Applications

Abstract

Designing a good architecture for an application is a wicked problem. Therefore, experience and knowledge are considered crucial for informing work in software architecture. However, many organizations do not pay sufficient attention to experience exploitation and architectural learning. Many users of information systems are not aware of the options and the needs to report problems and requirements. They often do not have time to describe a problem encountered in sufficient detail for developers to remove it. And there may be a lengthy process for providing feedback. Hence, the knowledge about problems and potential solutions is not shared effectively. Architectural knowledge needs to include evaluative feedback as well as decisions and their reasons (rationale).

In order to address this issue, this chapter proposes two concepts: (1) Integrating feedback and experience exchangemechanisms to facilitate architectural experience reuse and (2) an approach for modeling information flow in a project. Feedback and experience flows are designed to support effective learning. Each cycle produces a growing knowledge about the application. Service-oriented architectures (SOA) are used as an example to illustrate this general challenge in software architecture.