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

Solution architects – the busy bees of agile teams

Until the early 2000s, the solution architect role was not widely recognized as a formal discipline in software development. IASA Global positions solution architect, in The Architecture Journal, as a role that sits between the enterprise architect and the technical architect, and is responsible for strategy alignment, solution and technology decisions, and inter-team collaborations, and is the go-to person for any technical conflicts, implementation issues, or decisions. The position of the solution architect is illustrated in the following diagram:

Figure 5.2 – Position of the solution architect, as defined by IASA

To explain the solution architect's responsibilities, let's say a customer in a restaurant is requesting a particular dish for dinner from the dine-in menu. In this context, the enterprise architect is responsible for the dinner menu that provides the best blend of indulging...