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Contextual Factors of Architectural Strategy for Complex Systems

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Information Systems: Research, Development, Applications, Education (SIGSAND/PLAIS 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 300))

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Abstract

Architecture is the “backbone” of every software product, regardless of the development process used. However, its role, significance, and development strategies differ from one software development process to another. Traditional architecture development, based on a well-defined architectural process that involves the three following architectural phases–architectural analysis, synthesis, and evaluation–is based on the Big Design Up Front strategy. In agile development, architecture is generated gradually with each iteration, as a result of continuous code refactoring, not some predefined structure. Therefore, agile software development relies on an opposite extreme architectural strategy, emergent architecture.

The research topic of this paper is focused on the development of architecture for modern complex systems, which cannot be based on either of the two aforementioned extreme architectural strategies. Development of an architectural strategy for a complex system is significantly influenced by contextual factors.

This paper presents the results of a qualitative empirical research, carried out on a sample of 20 expert practitioners. The results represent contextual factors that the practitioners–surveyed respondents–consider when deciding to which extent will the emergent strategy be extended with explicit architectural practices typical to the traditional architecture development. Obtained results suggest that agile practitioners scale up agile processes, in terms of architecture development, with regard to the contextual factors of the system being developed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics in Subotica, University of Novi Sad, Segedinski put 9-11, 24000, Subotica, Serbia

    Mirjana Maric, Predrag Matkovic, Pere Tumbas & Veselin Pavlicevic

Authors
  1. Mirjana Maric
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  2. Predrag Matkovic
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  3. Pere Tumbas
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  4. Veselin Pavlicevic
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mirjana Maric .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Management, University of Gdansk, Sopot, Poland

    Stanisław Wrycza

  2. University of Gdansk, Sopot, Poland

    Jacek Maślankowski

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Maric, M., Matkovic, P., Tumbas, P., Pavlicevic, V. (2017). Contextual Factors of Architectural Strategy for Complex Systems. In: Wrycza, S., Maślankowski, J. (eds) Information Systems: Research, Development, Applications, Education. SIGSAND/PLAIS 2017. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 300. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66996-0_8

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