TY - CHAP
T1 - Architectural assumptions and their management in industry – An exploratory study
AU - Yang, Chen
AU - Liang, Peng
AU - Avgeriou, Paris
AU - Eliasson, Ulf
AU - Heldal, Rogardt
AU - Pelliccione, Patrizio
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - As an important type of architectural knowledge, architectural assumptions should be well managed in projects. However, little empirical research has been conducted regarding architectural assumptions and their management in software development. In this paper, we conducted an exploratory case study with twenty-four architects to analyze architectural assumptions and their management in industry. In this study, we confirmed certain findings from our previous survey on architectural assumptions (e.g., neither the term nor the concept of architectural assumption is commonly used in industry, and stakeholders may have different understandings of the architectural assumption concept). We also got five new findings: (1) architects frequently make architectural assumptions in their work; (2) the architectural assumption concept is subjective; (3) architectural assumptions are context-dependent and have a dynamic nature (e.g., turning out to be invalid or vice versa during their lifecycle); (4) there is a connection between architectural assumptions and certain types of software artifacts (e.g., requirements and design decisions); (5) twelve architectural assumptions management activities and four benefits of managing architectural assumptions were identified.
AB - As an important type of architectural knowledge, architectural assumptions should be well managed in projects. However, little empirical research has been conducted regarding architectural assumptions and their management in software development. In this paper, we conducted an exploratory case study with twenty-four architects to analyze architectural assumptions and their management in industry. In this study, we confirmed certain findings from our previous survey on architectural assumptions (e.g., neither the term nor the concept of architectural assumption is commonly used in industry, and stakeholders may have different understandings of the architectural assumption concept). We also got five new findings: (1) architects frequently make architectural assumptions in their work; (2) the architectural assumption concept is subjective; (3) architectural assumptions are context-dependent and have a dynamic nature (e.g., turning out to be invalid or vice versa during their lifecycle); (4) there is a connection between architectural assumptions and certain types of software artifacts (e.g., requirements and design decisions); (5) twelve architectural assumptions management activities and four benefits of managing architectural assumptions were identified.
KW - Architectural assumption
KW - Architectural assumptions management
KW - Case study
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-65831-5_14
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-65831-5_14
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9783319658308
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 191
EP - 207
BT - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
PB - Springer
ER -