The purpose of this activity is to manage architectural decisions within an enterprise. Architectural Decisions may be defined at any time, by IT Architects and also IT experts.
Work Breakdown Structure
Purpose
The purpose of this activity is
to define an Architectural Decision and get it approved and published. Documenting important decisions provides a
repository (of decisions) that will help guide other architects, managers, and implementers in being compliant with
enterprise and business domain standards. They also provide a source of information for re-visiting decisions over time.
Description
This phase has the following goals:
Create an Architecture Decision (AD):
Define the context of the problem, issue or decision;
Define the constraints, imposed by existing architecture, enterprise standards or others;
Define the rationale for the decision, through a well researched summary of the facts;
Extract the implications of the AD, on current systems, future systems, support aspects and other aspects;
Define or refine the specifics of the decision;
Get the AD reviewed and approved by the appropriate review body;
This activity is best carried out by an individual or a small team (playing the role of Architect), and
usually guided by one or two individuals who have deep experience in architecting systems in the relevant domain. It is
composed or staffed with cross-functional team members. Issues that are typically architecturally important include
structure, technology, performance, scaling, distribution, or other specialty engineering requirements. Significant
architectural constraints might also flow from physical and environmental requirements.
Usage
Usage Guidance
An architectural decision may be defined at any time during the development of an architecture, a project, during business
planning and in many other situations. This is an on-going activity.
