Part Four: Architecture and Business

Perhaps the most important job of an architect is to be a fulcrum where business and technical decisions meet and interact. The architect is responsible for many aspects of the business, and must be continually translating business needs and goals into technical realizations, and translating technical opportunities and limitations into business consequences.

In this section of the book, we explore some of the most important business consequences of architecture. This includes treating software architecture decisions as business investments, dealing with the organizational aspects of architecture (such as organizational learning and knowledge management), and looking at architecture as the key enabler of software product lines.

In Chapter 23 we discuss the economic implications of architectural decisions and provide a method—called the CBAM, or Cost Benefit Analysis Method—for making rational, business-driven architectural choices. The CBAM builds upon other architecture methods and principles that you have already seen in this book—scenarios, quality attributes, active stakeholder involvement—but adds a new twist to the evaluation of architectural improvements: an explicit consideration of the utility that an architectural improvement brings.

In Chapter 24 we consider the fact that architectures are created by actual human beings, called architects working in actual organizations. This chapter considers the questions of how to foster individual competence—that is, how to create competent architects—and how to create architecturally competent organizations.

Finally, in Chapter 25 we look at the concept of software product lines. Not surprisingly, we find that software architectures are the most important component of software-intensive product lines.