Identifying and Managing Key Challenges in Architecting Software-Intensive Systems

In many traditional industry applications, such as automotive, process automation and manufacturing automation, software plays a crucial role as an enabler for the introduction of new functionality and retaining competitiveness. The system and software architecture plays an important part in ensuring the systems’ qualities. However, the design of the architecture may be neglected during system development, whilst development efforts are centered on implementing new functionality. The architecture is supposed to support and enable key quality attributes such as safety, reliability, maintainability and flexibility, and so on. This thesis identifies some of the key issues in architecting these software intensive systems. In total, 21 issues have been identified; examples of these issues are (1) there is a lack of process for architecture development, (2) there is a lack of method or model to evaluate business value when choosing architecture, (3) there is a lack of clear long-term architectural strategy, and (4) processes and methods are less valued than individuals’ knowledge and competence. Through a series of workshops, root causes were identified for a selection of these issues. Based on these root causes, five success factors were identified. The success factors are (1) define an architectural strategy (2) implement a process for architectural work (3) ensure authority for architects (4) clarify the business impact of the architecture and (5) optimize on the project portfolio level instead of optimizing each project. In an attempt to provide a possible solution to some of the issues, a method has been created to evaluate how new functionality is successfully integrated into an existing architecture. The method is a combination of the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method, ATAM, and the Analytical Hierarchy Process, AHP. The method firstly supports a structured way of listing system goals, and secondly, it also supports design decision-making. Since several issues relate to the organization and are affected by management, a comparison was made between the view of management and architects. This study revealed that one cause for the lack of focus on architecture could be that the existing performance measurement systems used by management all focus on the later phases of development when the architecture is already set. CoS