Facilitating Software Architecture

Part III. Finding Your Way Through the Decision Landscape

By now, you are now well prepared with elements—both core and supporting—to reinforce decentralized deciding. But deciding is still hard. Part III offers support for everyone who participates in this core architectural practice so that they are aware of the complex dynamics of decisions in sociotechnical systems. You will learn how decisions actually work.

Chapter 12 focuses on the softer, more personal, human aspects of deciding. It looks in particular at how framing, creativity, bias, and fear all play a far bigger role than we like to admit in software decisions. It introduces ways of thinking, approaches, checklists, and more than a dash of cognitive science so that you might become more aware of your human frailties and not fall prey to them as you practice architecture.

Chapter 13 broadens the scope beyond the individual, considering how best to approach decisions to tackle architectural variability, or what is more colloquially known as “unknown unknowns,” and the unpredictability and power of software that arise from them. It looks in depth at the pain that variability can cause architectural practice if it is not addressed before moving on to a series of proven principles and strategies for working with variability and using it to unlock the full power of software.

Chapter 14 threads both of these aspects together, looking at how variability plays into the interconnectedness of decisions, from both a technical ...