Driving Agile Architecting with Cost and Risk

Five pieces of advice can help architects become more effective in an agile world without having to implement new methods or frameworks. They describe changes in attitude or behavior rather than complete practices or principles so they´re easy to digest and apply. The ideas are based on a solution architecting approach called Risk- and Cost-Driven Architecture. Core to the approach is the use of risk and cost to determine the architectural significance of concerns. Agility is achieved by keeping the architecture lightweight, addressing only those concerns that are especially risky or costly. A risk- and cost-driven backlog of architectural concerns balances the generally value-driven product backlog to achieve “just enough anticipation” in the evolution of software solutions.