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

Linking architecture activities to business backlogs

Architects need to adhere to the discipline of consistently using backlogs as the sole source of work assignments. The simplest way for architects to get their work noticed is to have a single backlog for both functional and technical backlog items following the same cadence of the team. Once architecture backlog items are captured within the same product backlog, it is easy to bring visibility by linking them using meaningful stereotypes such as blocked by, related, and depends.

There are three types of scenarios that need different approaches for selling to non-technical stakeholders, as explained here:

  • Direct: The business understands these types of technical backlog items as there is a direct correlation with a business backlog item. For example, an application user login needs single sign-on or to design an Order API for third-party access.
  • Derived: These technical backlog items are created to support business...