Book Image

Becoming an Agile Software Architect

By : Rajesh R V
Book Image

Becoming an Agile Software Architect

By: Rajesh R V

Overview of this book

Many organizations have embraced Agile methodologies to transform their ability to rapidly respond to constantly changing customer demands. However, in this melee, many enterprises often neglect to invest in architects by presuming architecture is not an intrinsic element of Agile software development. Since the role of an architect is not pre-defined in Agile, many organizations struggle to position architects, often resulting in friction with other roles or a failure to provide a clear learning path for architects to be productive. This book guides architects and organizations through new Agile ways of incrementally developing the architecture for delivering an uninterrupted, continuous flow of values that meets customer needs. You'll explore various aspects of Agile architecture and how it differs from traditional architecture. The book later covers Agile architects' responsibilities and how architects can add significant value by positioning themselves appropriately in the Agile flow of work. Through examples, you'll also learn concepts such as architectural decision backlog,the last responsible moment, value delivery, architecting for change, DevOps, and evolutionary collaboration. By the end of this Agile book, you'll be able to operate as an architect in Agile development initiatives and successfully architect reliable software systems.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Understanding Architecture in the Agile World
Free Chapter
2
Chapter 1: Looking through the Agile Architect's Lens
4
Section 2: Transformation of Architect Roles in Agile
8
Section 3: Essential Knowledge to Become a Successful Agile Architect
15
Section 4: Personality Traits and Organizational Influence

Structuring teams within flow teams

Flow teams are autonomous and are as big as 100 people. To operate effectively and efficiently, flow teams need an internal structure. Different strategies can be used for structuring teams within flow teams.

The primary principle is to create sub-flow teams within flow teams, but this time the flow is at the feature level. The following diagram captures three different possibilities of feature-based team structuring:

Figure 12.24 – Compositions of feature-based teams

As shown in the diagram, a feature can span across multiple systems, be within a system, or span across modules of a system. In this context, a feature is a set of continuously evolving requirements. For example, in a tour booking scenario, payment, search, and booking are long-lasting and evolving features. A stable, fixed-capacity team is required to develop and maintain those features. A flow team may have a mix of teams such as feature teams spanning...