Eltjo Poort, Hans van Vliet, Ninth Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture, Boulder, CO, USA, June 20-24 2011, ISBN: 978-0-7695-4351-2

We propose to view architecting as a risk- and cost management discipline. This point of view helps architects identify the key concerns to address in their decision making, by providing a simple, relatively objective way to assess architectural significance. It also helps business stakeholders to align the architect’s activities and results with their own goals. We examine the consequences of this point of view on the architecture process, and give some guidance on its implementation, using examples from practicing architects trained in this approach.

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An extended version of this paper appears as chapter 9 in Improving Solution Architecting Practices

Eltjo Poort, Agung Pramono, Michiel Perdeck, Viktor Clerc, Hans van Vliet, 5th International Conference on the Quality of Software Architectures, QoSA 2009, East Stroudsburg, PA, USA, June 24-26, 2009, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5581 Springer 2009, ISBN 978-3-642-02350-7

This paper presents the analysis and key findings of a survey on architectural knowledge sharing. The responses of 97 architects working in the Dutch IT Industry were analyzed by correlating practices and challenges with project size and success. Impact mechanisms between project size, project success, and architectural knowledge sharing practices and challenges were deduced based on reasoning, experience and literature. We find that architects run into numerous and diverse challenges sharing architectural knowledge, but that the only challenges that have a significant impact are the emotional challenges related to interpersonal relationships. Thus, architects should be careful when dealing with emotions in knowledge sharing.

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This paper appears as chapter 7 in Improving Solution Architecting Practices

Eltjo Poort, Herman Postema, Peter H.N. De With, Andrew Key, Third International Conference on Quality of Software Architectures, QoSA 2007, Medford, MA, USA, July 11-23, 2007, Revised Selected Papers. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4880 Springer.

A large IT company is creating a generic architecting process. Since the company has set an objective to achieve Maturity Level 3 of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), the process needs to comply with the relevant requirements set by the CMMI. This paper presents the elicitation of such requirements, and the resulting set of requirements. It analyzes their potential impact on generic architecting processes found in literature. It turns out that many key architectural concepts are at best loosely defined in the CMMI. CMMI is strong in support of the development-related architecting activities, but gives only indirect support for other architecting activities, particularly in a product development context.

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This paper appears as chapter 6 in Improving Solution Architecture Practices

Eltjo Poort, Pierre America, CIO Magazine, March 2007

Onbegrip tussen managers en IT-architecten leidt vaak tot moeizame projecten en innovaties. Managers zien architecten als idealisten. Architecten achten managers kortzichtig. Gelukkig zijn er recente ontwikkelingen gaande die kunnen helpen de verschillen te overbruggen. Het perspectief van twee architecten uit het veld.

Alien vs Predator

Eltjo Poort, Hans Adriaanse, Arie Kuijt, Peter H.N. De With, Fifth Working IEEE / IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA 2005), 6-10 November 2005, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

This paper presents and analyzes the key architectural decisions in the design of a successful Short Message Service Center as part of a GSM network.

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This paper appears as Chapter 5 in Improving Solution Architecture Practices

Eltjo Poort, Peter H.N. De With, 4th Working IEEE / IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA 2004), 12-15 June 2004, Oslo, Norway.

A lack of insight into the relationship between (non-) functional requirements and architectural solutions often leads to problems in real life projects. This paper presents a model that concentrates on the mapping of non-functional requirements onto functional requirements for architecture design. We build a framework that both provides a model and a repeatable method to transform conflicting requirements into a system decomposition. This paper presents the framework, and discusses two cases onto which the method is applied. In one case, the method is successfully used to reconstruct the high-level structure of a system from its requirements. The second case is one in which the method was actually used to create a system design fitting the stakeholders’ needs, and that is reproducible from its requirements.

This paper appears as Chapter 2 in Improving Solution Architecture Practices.