Analysis of design meetings for understanding software architecture decisions

Software architecture teams use verbal and graphical contributions to evaluate and select alternative design decisions. Usually the rationale behind these decisions is not recorded in the architecture document itself, and many contributions and rationale are lost to future reviewers and builders. This article describes Design Verbal Interventions Analysis (DVIA), which applies verbal protocol analysis to transcribed meetings logs to classify verbal interventions as either issue, orientation, mandatory orientation, request for clarification, explanation, disagreement, constraint, assessment, choice, or assumption. The approach is illustrated with a case study using transcribed meetings from undergraduate student teams designing a command-and-control center for a pan-Andean spatial project. The study shows that much of the interaction supports coevolution of problem understanding and solution framing, with designers engaged in simultaneous resolution of several design issues, following a cyclical structure. This strategy will allow to retrieve software architecture decisions from architecture team meetings.