Decision-Centric Architecture Reviews

Architecture evaluation is an important activity in the software engineering life cycle that ensures that the architecture satisfies stakeholders´ expectations. Additionally, risks and issues can be uncovered before they cause tremendous costs later in the life cycle. Unfortunately, architecture evaluation isn´t regularly practiced in industry. This article presents DCAR (decision-centric architecture review), an architecture evaluation method that uses architecture decisions as first-class entities. DCAR uncovers and evaluates the rationale behind the most important architecture decisions, considering the entire context in which the decisions were made. Furthermore, it´s lightweight and can be performed during or after the design is finalized. Experiences in large industrial projects have shown that full-scale DCAR evaluations, including reporting, can be conducted in fewer than five person-days, while producing satisfying results for the stakeholders.