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

Comparing different enterprise Agile frameworks

The 14th Annual State of Agile Report 2020 (https://stateofAgile.com) indicates that Scaled Agile Framework has been adopted far more than other Agile scaling frameworks. For this book, we will consider comparing Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Disciplined Agile (DA), and Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS).

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

SAFe (www.scaledAgileframework.com) is built on four values: alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and program execution. Program execution is particularly important in SAFe and is accomplished with a team construct called Agile Release Trains (ART). There are four levels of team constructs in SAFe: portfolio, solution, program or essential, and team.

SAFe defines Agile architecture as a set of values, practices, and collaborations for architecting a sustainable system. The focus areas of Agile architecture in SAFe are a continuous flow of values, collaboration, intentional architecture, emergent...