As a software architect for your organization, you may be required to efficiently and effectively evaluate the validity, quality, health, or maturity of a proposed, new, or legacy software architecture. This presentation describes a simple process you can follow to perform a rapid assessment of any software architecture effort, regardless of its size, complexity, or stage of development. It focuses on capturing the most critical aspects of the software architecture, including quality attributes, key architectural decisions, and architectural design. The process emphasizes identifying and documenting references to existing artifacts. It generally requires an interview with the most knowledgeable software engineer on the proposal, development, or maintenance team to identify both available artifacts and information that has never been documented. In the typical two-day process, information is gathered and recorded one the first day. On the second day, the information is analyzed, expert opinions are formulated, and a report is prepared and disseminated to relevant stakeholders. The process is a simple and straightforward mechanism for capturing software architecture and rapidly performing a valuable assessment at any time in the product lifecycle.
