- A Technical Debt Fairy Tale - Once upon a time, there was a lead developer called Annabel. She worked for vakation.com, a travel booking site on the Internet. She was the tech lead of the devops team that maintained the web-app front-end. Springtime was upon the land, for ‘twas April, a busy time, when people were starting to book their summer […]
- Architectural design with autonomous teams - According to the agile manifesto, the best architectures emerge from self-organizing teams. The word emerge here has received some criticism, since it seems to imply that this happens automagically (it doesn’t), and that it doesn’t require significant effort (it does). I prefer the verb design here (in stead of emerge), as it indicates an intentional […]
- Architecture: the outside view - Last month, I was asked to give a second opinion on some key architectural decisions and the way they were working out in a client’s IT landscape. Such architecture assessments are some of my favorite engagements, especially when there is sufficient time to get to the bottom of things with a small team of experts. […]
- Between the Waterfall Wasteland and the Agile Outback - Eltjo Poort, IEEE Software, vol. 37, no. 01, pp. 92-97, 2020.Agilists and architects too often talk past each other. In this issue’s “The Pragmatic Designer,” guest columnist Eltjo Poort helps to bridge the divide by identifying five architecture responsibilities. This enables teams to introspect about how well they are handling each, and encourages them to […]
- A Map to Waterfall Wasteland and the Agile Outback - Over the past 18 months, we have been iteratively developing a way to assess maturity with respect to architecture in an agile context. We did this together with a number of client organizations that were interested in improving their architecture function. I will be sharing some insights from this development in upcoming blog posts. This […]
- Managing Technical Debt - Keep your eyes open for a great new book on technical debt management by Philippe Kruchten, Ipek Ozkaya and Rod Nord. And for the evening seminar we will organize when Philippe and Ipek will be in The Netherlands in June. https://www.amazon.com/dp/013564593X/
- Value-driven Architecture Documentation - “[We value] working software over comprehensive documentation” features proudly on the front page of the Agile Manifesto. Further down on the page, the authors explain that they do not mean that there is no value in documentation (just less value than in the working software). The practice of documenting architectures in particular has significant positive […]
- Move slow and fix things - Four years ago, Facebook changed its famous motto “Move fast and break things” to “Move fast with stable infra” (not quite as catchy?). Most people associate the original motto with disrupting established business models (see e.g. Jonathan Taplin’s book with the same name). Mark Zuckerberg himself, however, hinted that its origins lie in a particular […]
- Opportunity Cost in the Technical Debt Business Case - A few years back, I discussed the business case for reducing technical debt, and the importance of accounting for the risk exposure in that business case. However, there is another item in that business case that deserves some attention: the opportunity cost, defined by The New Oxford American Dictionary as “the loss of potential gain from […]
- What happened on SATURN 2018 - The annual SATURN conference is usually one of the highlights of my professional year, and SATURN 2018 was no exception. This year’s edition took place in Plano, TX, and presented another jam-packed cornucopia of digital architectural knowledge in four parallel tracks over four days. Don’t be sad if you’ve missed it: all sessions have been […]
- Architecture is Context - For architects designing complex solutions, a well-documented set of requirements can never be the sole basis of the architecture. Architects have to undestand why these specific requirements are relevant to their stakeholders, and most likely will have to ask “why?” again and again to understand the stakeholders’ real needs, so as to design the architecture […]
- Shortening the architectural feedback loop - One of the things architects can learn from the Agile mindset is the importance of short feedback loops. The quicker an architect receives feedback on their output, the faster they learn about its effect in their specific solution context – and better informed architects make better decisions. Architecture is a matter of reducing uncertainty by […]
- Dutch summary of IEEE Software Column on Just Enough Anticipation - I wrote a summary in Dutch on computable.nl of my IEEE Software Column on Just Enough Anticipation.
- My SATURN 2017 session on Agile and traditional architeture lifecycles - My SATURN 2017 session on Agile and traditional architeture lifecycles
- SATURN 2017 - Another great SATURN (SEI Architecture Technology User Network) Conference in Denver last week. The cast of interesting and directly applicable topics was led by two main characters: microservices and event sourcing. Apart from those leading roles, there were supporting roles for functional programming, and of course the popular returning role for good old uncle agile […]
- Architecting in a digital world - Architecting in a digital world is about anticipating and accommodating change. See my blog post on cgi.com.
- Architecting transient solutions - When I teach architecture classes, I increasingly run into architects who never architect a “system”. They do all the things architects do: analyse stakeholder needs, identify ways to address these needs, (help) decide on the best way by making trade-offs, communicate these decisions and oversee the solution’s implementation. However, after all the work is done, […]
- Just Enough Anticipation: Architect Your Time Dimension - Eltjo Poort, IEEE Software, vol.33, no.6, pp. 11-15, Nov.-Dec. 2016A bit of planning is indispensable to anticipate events that will affect your software’s risk profile. Traditional architectural planning emphasizes the spatial dimension (for example, components and connectors) but neglects the time dimension. Consulting IT architect Eltjo Poort makes the case for an explicit representation of […]
- Architectuur krijgt nieuwe kans (Dutch) - Eltjo Poort, Computable, 20 September 2016Official link ‘The best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams’, is wellicht het meest misbruikte principe uit het Agile Manifesto. Door de jaren heen was de gangbare interpretatie van dit principe verworden tot: ‘Hoe minder je nadenkt over de toekomst, hoe beter je systeem wordt.” Het was de […]
- Agile Architecture Roadmapping - My agile architecture roadmapping talk at SATURN 2016 can now be viewed on the SEI’s YouTube channel.
- SATURN 2016 – part 2 - This is the second and last part of my SATURN 2016 conference report. Since I posted the first part, the organizers have posted video recordings of many of the best talks, and more will follow on the SATURN playlist on YouTube. Ethical and social considerations in software architecture design featured in many talks, but most […]
- SATURN 2016 – part 1 - This year’s SATURN (Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Architecture Technology User Network Conference) was held in San Diego from May 2-5. Compared to last year, the geographical context was much improved – Southern California felt a lot more relaxed than Baltimore under curfew. The conference organizers had once again prepared an excellent technical program, and as […]
- Linda Northrop Software Architecture Award - The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon has selected me as the winner of this year’s Linda Northrop Software Architecture Award. I feel honored to receive this award from the most respected research institute in our profession. It is a great recognition of the work done by the RCDA team at CGI in the past […]
- “Agilizing the Architecture Department” recent talk at Nedap - The other talks and panel discussion at Life at Nedap.
- Architecting in a Solution Costing Context: Early Experiences with Solution-Based Estimating - Eltjo R. Poort, Eric van der Vliet, Software Architecture (WICSA), 2015 12th Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on , vol., no., pp.127-130, 4-8 May 2015Organizations require cost estimates for delivering and operating software-intensive solutions. One of the factors impacting these costs is the solution’s architecture. Applying solution architecting practices helps improve the accuracy of early cost estimating. […]
- SATURN 2015 presentation videos on-line - Videos of many SATURN 2015 presentations are now available to view on-line.
- Time as a First Class Architectural Concept - Architects in the digital world often compare themselves to architects in the construction world. The metaphor works on many levels: architects in both worlds are responsible for conceptual (and structural) integrity, are the content leaders with overview over design and construction, making key design decisions and drawing blueprints. There is at least one aspect, however, […]
- What happened on SATURN 2015 - Another great SATURN (the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Architecture Technology User Network) conference in Baltimore this year. The setting was a bit surreal – due to social unrest and a curfew(!) we couldn’t really explore the city during the conference, and were pretty much confined to the conference hotel. After three days of intense knowledge […]
- Software Architect is the best job - Software Architect, once again rated the best job in America by CNN/Money. I can tell you from experience, outside of America it’s pretty great too.
- Video: Costing View of Architecture - Watch my Saturn 2014 talk on the Costing View or Architecture on YouTube:
- Driving Agile Architecting with Cost and Risk - Eltjo R. Poort, IEEE Software, vol.31, no. 5, pp. 20-23, Sept.-Oct. 2014Five pieces of advice can help architects become more effective in an agile world without having to implement new methods or frameworks. They describe changes in attitude or behavior rather than complete practices or principles so they’re easy to digest and apply. Official link […]
- How DevOps impacts architecture - DevOps is an approach to IT that radically alters the traditional relationship between development, maintenance and operation of software. The traditional separation between Dev and Opsbrings with it a substantial amount of waste in terms of elapsed time and budget. This waste is caused by differences in way of working, attitude and hand-over inefficiencies. The […]
- Impressions of SATURN 2014 - SATURN (the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) Conference) has become my favorite annual professional event. What a great mix of architects, developers and researchers, and what a nice way to learn from each other. The pervasive theme at this year’s SATURN was DevOps. Throughout the conference it became clear that DevOps is […]
- Survey says… solution architecture works! - We all know that solution architecture adds value to business and IT solutions, but as Philippe Kruchten writes on his blog, we sometimes have trouble quantifying the benefits towards (project) managers or product owners. I recently ran into Raymond Slot’s PhD thesis titled “A method for valuing architecture-based businesstransformation and measuring the value of solutions […]
- The business case for technical debt reduction - When I teach solution architecture classes, technical debt is always a very popular topic among practicing architects. Technical debt is a metaphor that transposes the concepts of loan and interest to IT based solutions. It respresents work that should be done in order to deliver a consistent, maintainable solution. As long as the work has not […]
- Architecture versus Design - In our architecture classes, we always spend some time discussing the difference between architecture and design. We say that architecture is a set of design decisions, so is there even a difference? In some domains, there really isn’t. In our organization, infrastructure architects generally take all infrastructure design decisions, and are responsible for the completeness […]
- Architecture can be agile, too! - Ever since the introduction of “Agile” around the turn of the century, people have wondered how to combine agility with architecture. The difficulty of this combination is due in part to a fundamental difference in goals between the agile and architecture approaches: architects look for stability and future-proof-ness, while agilists want to embrace change, looking […]
- What happened on Saturn - Last week, I had the priviledge of attending the Saturn 2013 conference in Minneapolis. Those who follow @eltjopoort on Twitter may have already seen some posts about it, but I thought I’d summarize the hightlights in this blog. SATURN is an important international architecture conference, organized annually by the Software Engineering Institute. It attracts an […]
- Assumption-free architecture documentation - When reviewing architectures, I sometimes run into architecture description documents that contain long lists of assumptions. There are some negative connotations associated with assumptions. They often read as a “list of things other people should take care of.” They seem to imply that the author: has not checked whether the assumptions are valid; does not […]
- How much architecture up-front? - I recently read an interesting book chapter by Barry Boehm about what is the right amount of architecture to do “up-front” before committing to the architecture. Boehm analyses his project database and concludes that for most solutions, a proper solution architecture validated up-front will eliminate many of the delivery overruns and shortfalls commonly experienced. The only […]
- RCDA to become a CGI offering - Listen to Bett and Russ of architecturecast.net interviewing me about RCDA. Update: download the white-paper on RCDA as an agile solution architecture approach. This week, we set in motion the process that will make Risk- and Cost Driven Architecture (RCDA) part of CGI’s global portfolio. CGI’s solution architecture approach, originally developed for internal use by CGI’s (at the […]
- Fast and slow thinking for architects - I recently read “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. A leading psychologist and Nobel laureate in economics, Kahneman has condensed a lifetime of discovery and insights into how people make choices into a remarkably readable and enjoyable masterpiece. To quote Richard Thaler on the cover, this book “will change the way you think, on […]
- Issues Dealing with Non-Functional Requirements across the Contractual Divide - Eltjo Poort, Peter H.N. De With, Hans van Vliet, Andrew Key, Joint 10th Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture & 6th European Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA/ECSA 2012)Agreement on Non-Functional Requirements between customer and supplier is crucial to a successful IT solution delivery project. In an ideal world, stakeholders and architects cooperate to achieve their […]
- RCDA: Architecting as a Risk- and Cost Management Discipline - Eltjo Poort, Hans van Vliet, Journal of Systems and Software, May 2012We 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 […]
- Improving Solution Architecting Practices - Eltjo R. Poort, Doctoral Thesis, VU University, AmsterdamAs the presence of Information Technology increases, so grows the impact of the design decisions shaping the IT solutions that touch our lives. Solution architecting is the art of making such decisions – a relatively new craft emerging in the IT industry. We see the value of modern […]
- How Architects See Non-Functional Requirements: Beware of Modifiability - Eltjo Poort, Inge van de Weerd, Hans van Vliet, Nick Martens, 18th International Working Conference Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2012)This paper presents the analysis and key findings of a survey about dealing with non-functional requirements (NFRs) among architects. We find that, as long as the architect is aware of the importance of […]
- Een risico- en kostengedreven aanpak voor architectuur - Eltjo Poort, Hans van Vliet, Informatie, November 2011Architectuur is te beschouwen als een discipline die gedreven wordt door risico’s en kosten. Risico- en kostenmanagement is dan het primaire businessdoel van het architectuurproces. Dit gedachtegoed vormt de basis van een aanpak voor solution architecture die bij Logica is ontwikkeld, getiteld Risk and Cost Driven Architecture (RCDA). […]
- Architecting as a Risk- and Cost Management Discipline - Eltjo Poort, Hans van Vliet, Ninth Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture, Boulder, CO, USA, June 20-24 2011, ISBN: 978-0-7695-4351-2We 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 […]
- Successful Architectural Knowledge Sharing: Beware of Emotions - 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 978-3-642-02350-7This paper presents the analysis and key findings of a survey on architectural knowledge sharing. The […]
- The Influence of CMMI on Establishing an Architecting Process - 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 […]
- IT-architect en manager: alien versus predator? - Eltjo Poort, Pierre America, CIO Magazine, March 2007Onbegrip 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
- Successful Architecture for Short Message Service Center - 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, USAThis paper presents and analyzes the key architectural decisions in the design of a successful Short Message Service Center as part of a GSM network. Official link This paper […]
- Resolving Requirement Conflicts through Non-Functional Decomposition - 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 […]