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

Delivering early value with MVA

Early validation, feedback, and learning cycles are critical practices in agile software delivery. Developing an MVP helps enterprises test new innovations in production and receive customer feedback early enough to reduce risk before committing to large investments.

Architects play a critical role in defining the technical scope of MVP as well as designing the Minimum Viable Architecture (MVA). As a rule of thumb, high business value features are delivered first to ensure the business gets maximum value upfront. When designing the MVP scope, features are carefully chosen based on a combination of risk and value, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 6.14 – Risk- and value-based prioritization for MVP

The preceding diagram is adapted from Ken W. Collier's view on the prioritization approach for business features. However, this approach is not particularly viable for architecture unless the business solution...