Agile Software Architecture: Chapter 8. Lightweight Architecture Knowledge Management for Agile Software Development

by Veli-Pekka Eloranta

Architecture knowledge management (AKM) aims to codify and maintain the architectural knowledge of a software system in a form that can be easily accessed by different stakeholders. Integrating AKM with an agile project management paradigm is a challenge because the agile philosophy downplays both plan-driven development and documentation. Yet, by integrating lightweight AKM practices with the process, agile software development could avoid maintenance and communication problems arising from scarce documentation. In this chapter, we introduce existing technologies that could be used as elements of lightweight AKM for agile software development and present possible models to integrate AKM with Scrum, which is the most popular agile approach in use today. In particular, we advocate the exploitation of architectural evaluations to collect architecturally significant information semiautomatically and the use of automated document generation to expose the contents of an architectural information repository in an easily accessible form. The proposed models are based on observed architecting work practices in industry and on interviews carried out in industry to identify the architectural information flow in real-life agile projects.

51 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 27, 2013