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

Chapter 10: Lean Documentation through Collaboration

For the most part, things never get built the way they were drawn.

– Maya Lin, designer of 'A Fold in the Field', a sculpture park in Auckland

The previous chapter covered technical agility and different pillars contributing to technical agility, such as patterns and techniques, DevOps and continuous delivery, and built-in quality. This chapter advances to documentation, one of the most debated topics in Agile, and reviews various documentation aspects with a specific focus on delivering architecture artifacts.

Amateur Agile teams treat documentation as a no value-added activity. While excessive documentation creates flow impediments, little documentation can have severe consequences in terms of the sustainability of systems' delivery flow and reliability. How much documentation is sufficient is a repeatedly debated point in Agile software development. This chapter will get deeper into the documentation...