Work Product Descriptor (Artifact): Architectural Decisions Notification

The Architectural Decisions Notification artifact contains summaries of Architectural Decisions (AD) that are approved or rejected for use within the enterprise IT architecture, domain IT architecture, or other level of IT architecture. ADs are documented to:

Provide a single place to find important architectural decisions and to avoid unnecessary reconsideration of the same issues;
Make explicit the rationale and justification of architectural decisions and IT architectures;
Alternatives are documented, including reasons why they were dismissed;
Ensure the architecture is extensible and can support an evolving system;
Provide a reference of documented decisions for new people who join the team;
Any decision involving IT hardware and software is included.

Main Description

Architecture Decisions Repository

The architectural decisions (AD) repository contains all IT decisions that apply to the enterprise (or to business domains, units, projects), the "mandatory use of IPV6" for example. Each AD contains the background and substantiating information that was used to make the decision. When a new decision is added to the repository a notification is sent out letting IT architects and other interested parties about the decision. See: Artifact: Architectural Decision Repository.

Users are generally not interested in the background and substantiation, just the decision itself and therefore this "Notification Report" has been defined that provides a summary of the ADs with likes to the full AD definition provided.

Notification Contents

The "notification" artifact extracts the decision portion of all ADs to be distributed in the notification, providing a useful summary for IT architects and other stakeholders.

The rough contents of an Architecture Decision Notification are the title, reference number, date, description and external reference to the decision—consult the definition for more detail.

Brief Outline

The Architectural Decision Notification document has just one repeated part for each included AD. The following is extracted from each AD (also see: Template: Architectural Decisions Summary Template:

Architectural Decision

Describe the Architectural Decision. It is important to briefly state the context and scope of the Architectural Decision. Use any figures or diagram to help the reader understanding the decision. The reader of this document should understand the decision and its scope from this summary.

Optionally the following section of the architectural decision may be included for each AD in the summary:

Implications

Document any implications of the decision, such as technology choice, cost, and support implications. Also document and cross-reference any implications on other ADs, past or present.

The implications of the rationale have to be explored as well. Things such as:

How will this Architectural Decision will be applied over time?

How will this Architectural Decision will be applied in multiple systems?

What are the skills requirements to support this Architectural Decision?

Have all stakeholders been involved in that Architectural Decision?