A Software Architecture Process

Abstract

The role of an architect is much more than simply carrying out a software design activity. The architect must typically: Work with the requirements team: The requirements team will be focused on eliciting the functional requirements from the application stakeholders. The architect plays an important role in requirements gathering by understanding the overall systems needs and ensuring that the appropriate quality attributes are explicit and understood. Work with various application stakeholders: Architects play a pivotal liaison role by making sure all the application’s stakeholder needs are understood and incorporated into the design. For example, in addition to the business user requirements for an application, system administrators will require that the application can be easily installed, monitored, managed and upgraded. Lead the technical design team: Defining the application architecture is a design activity. The architect leads a design team, comprising system designers (or on large projects, other architects) and technical leads in order to produce the architecture blueprint.Work with the project management: The architect works closely with project management, helping with project planning, estimation and task allocation and scheduling.