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

Organizing people around value

In software, successful Agile teams are fully autonomous. Similar to manufacturing, teams need to be organized around the flow of value to achieve the required levels of autonomy. For large organizations, this restructuring is substantially complex. Frameworks such as SAFe, Disciplined Agile (DA), and Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) suggest methods for restructuring teams aligned to flow.

The following diagram illustrates the concept of flow-centric teams:

Figure 12.7 – Flow-centric autonomous teams avoid external dependencies

As shown in the diagram, the work continuously flows through a software delivery pipeline, where teams are organized around those flows. A fully autonomous team must be self-sufficient without needing to reach out to external teams.

Organizing around value is a way to improve flow by breaking the power barriers of traditional organizations. Therefore, aligning to the flow of work significantly impacts...