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

Improving the flow of value in IT

For non-software IT flows such as IT asset delivery, optimizing the flow involves reviewing steps in the flow and eliminating, optimizing, or automating necessary steps to increase delivery speed. The following diagram shows the IT asset delivery flow:

Figure 12.5 – IT asset delivery flow

As shown in the diagram, the flow commences when an employee requests a device. This request goes through several steps before the device is issued to the requester. At Snow in the Desert, line manager approval is based on whether the employee holds a device already, cost center approval is based on the budget left, finance approval is based on the monthly spend limit, and store approval is based on the right devices for the right purpose and their availability. A critical review of this reveals that all approvals except the store approval could be automated, and therefore the flow speed can be dramatically improved.

Software delivery...