2. Architecture Reviews
• Architecture reviews are an effective way of ensuring
design quality and addressing architectural concerns.
• The principal objectives of a software architecture
review are to assess an architecture’s ability to deliver
a system capable of fulfilling the quality requirements
and to identify potential risks.1
1. P. Clements, R. Kazman, and M. Klein, Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case
Studies, Addison-Wesley, 2002.
3. prepare work
Products and plan
examine work
products
prepare review
package
ready for
review?
read package
study work
products
prepare
comments
schedule review
send out packages
Author Moderator Reviewers
Y
N
DESIGN REVIEW
Data Flow Diagram Of Architecture Review
4. • Work products (design)
– use cases
– class diagrams
– primary responsibility of each class
– sequence diagrams
– models
– etc.
• Plan
– what will be reviewed and the order
– what types of issues will be covered
• don’t hide risks
Work Product & Plan
5. Review Package
• Intro- history, key problems, important decisions,
requirements, designs, analysis etc
• Agenda- Order materials will be reviewed.
• Criteria- Define the various fields
• Work products- Use cases, class diagrams,
sequence diagrams, etc.
• Reviewer assignments- What each reviewer is
responsible for; e.g. give each reviewer
responsibility for a subset of the classes
6. Roles In Review Process
• Moderator – not a member of reviewed team
– keeps review moving
– ensures all voices are heard and key points covered
– ensures decisions are made: accepted,
major/minor revisions, further review
• Recorder – member of the reviewed team
– takes notes, records all issues raised and decisions
reached, all questions, suggestions, and action
items
– publishes a report of the review
7. • Reviewers
– Raise questions, concerns
• Author and design team
– Answers questions but is otherwise silent
8. Goals Of Architecture Review
We perform architecture reviews to ensure:
• The architecture of a system is documented.
• It provides a coherent description of the system.
• It is conformant to State and Agency principles,
standards and plans.
• It is compatible with the legacy technical landscape.
• That the chosen technology and design is likely to
achieve the project’s goals and objectives.
9. Benefits of Architecture Review
• Identifying potential risks in the proposed architecture
• Assessing quality attributes (for example, scalability,
performance)
• Identifying opportunities for reuse of artifacts and
components
• Promoting good architecture design and evaluation
practices
• Reducing project cost caused by undetected design
problems
• Capturing the rationale for important design decisions
• Uncovering problems and conflicts in requirements
10. • Conforming to organization’s quality assurance
process
• Assisting stakeholders in negotiating conflicting
requirements
• Partitioning architectural design responsibilities
• Identifying skills required to implement the proposed
architecture
• Improving architecture documentation quality
• Facilitating clear articulation of nonfunctional
requirements
• Opening new communication channels among
stakeholders
