Software Architecting Success Factors and Pitfalls

My boss give to my email so sharing it with myself

Software Architecting Success Factors and Pitfalls

The top critical success factors for the architecting effort that we have identified are:

The architecting effort must:

* address a strategic business objective of your key sponsor
* have a good lead architect with well-defined role and style
* have a lead architect and architecture team who are able to "sell" (lead); conversely, the organization must be willing to "buy into" (follow)
* contribute immediate value to developers (utilizers of the architecture)

The architecture is more likely to be successful if:

* there are architecture advocates at all levels of the organization
* architecture is woven into the culture
* there is customer involvement/pressure/demand

Critical Success Factors

* Interpersonal and team communication and ownership
* Leadership
* Vision
* Teamwork
* Availability of talent/resources
* Must have strong management sponsorship
* Market/business understanding
* Good match between technology and business strategy
* Customer focus
* Clear specifications including dependencies
* Simple architecture
* Deployed in phases/incrementally
* Architecture is understandable by all
* Solve at least the current problem
* Validation of requirements during each step of the process
* Project management

The architect must have the following skills:

* good domain knowledge
* good communicator/listener
* good persuader
* good project management skills

The architect must

* have a clear and compelling vision
* champion the cause
* provide constructive feedback

Pitfalls

* Poor leadership
* Thinking at too low a level
* Poor communication inside/outside the architecture team
* Not enough "selling"
* Lack of resources/talent
* Poorly designed roles and responsibilities
* Bad design/idea
* Lack of extensibility
* Doesn't solve the project team's problems
* Lack of control/authority
* Requirements unclear, not well-defined, not signed off, changing
* Architecture team loses touch with the product team's problems
* Product team believes "we can solve it better ourselves"
* Development management not penalized for "stalling"
* Politics