Agile teams that value working software over comprehensive documentation and believe that the best designs emerge from self-organizing teams need lightweight architecture-description techniques. Many of these teams rely on informal software architecture descriptions passed from developer to developer much like an oral history is passed from generation to generation. While an architecture oral history is critical to any team’s success, ad hoc descriptions tend to overlook the importance of system properties.
During this session, I will share examples from my experience and show how to create a meaningful architecture oral history using two systematic yet lightweight techniques that facilitate collaboration and help establish a meaningful architecture narrative. The architecture haiku describes a system’s architecture in a single page using concise, descriptive language. The refreshed system metaphor provides teams with guidance for describing a system’s architecture using their own terms.
Anupam Kaul, adidas AG
Nickolas Guertin, US Navy
Adam Porter, University of Maryland
Andreas Buzzi, Credit Suisse
Phillip Herbert, NASA/SSC
Mark Hughes, NASA/SSC
Dawn Davis, NASA/SSC
Mark Turowski, NASA/SSC
Wendy Holladay, NASA/SSC
Peggi Marshall, NASA/SSC/ARTS
Michael Duncan, NASA/SSC/ARTS
Jon Morris, NASA/SSC/Lockheed Martin
Richard Franzl, NASA/SSC/Lockheed Martin
Vinay Krishna, Cegedim
United States United States, St. Petersburg
7th–11th May 2012