Software Systems Architecture: Working with Stakeholders Using Viewpoints and Perspectives

7 The Architecture Definition Process

Architecture definition starts early in the project lifecycle, when scope and requirements are often still unclear and the current view of the system may differ substantially from what is eventually built. For this reason, architecture definition tends to be a more fluid activity than later tasks such as designing, building, and testing, when the problem you are solving is better understood. When you start, you don’t fully know the size and extent of your system, where the complexity is, what the most significant risks are, or where you will encounter conflict among your stakeholders.

In this chapter, we outline a simple process of architecture definition that applies (in some way) to most software development ...