Architecture is critical for business success. A solid architecture helps prevent defects and system failures. It helps a development effort save money and get quality products to the market faster. Most software-reliant systems are required to be modifiable and reliable. They may also need to be secure, interoperable, and portable. Data demonstrates that the most costly technical debt that organizations are struggling with results from making poor architectural choices and inadequately managing architectural decisions. How do you know whether your software architecture is suitable or at risk relative to its target system qualities? How do you assess whether it has technical debt? This Architecture Boot Camp session covers practical and proven architecture analysis and evaluation techniques that identify risks early in the development lifecycle, using scenario-driven peer reviews and the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), a tested process that has been used in many evaluations over the past 15 years. In addition, it covers a practical and easy-to-implement approach for making technical debt visible through an organization’s issue tracking system.
