Architectural decision-making in enterprises: preliminary findings from an exploratory study in norwegian electricity industry

  • Authors:

  • Mohsen Anvaari;Reidar Conradi;Letizia Jaccheri

  • Affiliations:

  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway;Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway;Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

  • Venue:
  • ECSA'13 Proceedings of the 7th European conference on Software Architecture
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

Motivation: The current literature in the architectural knowledge domain has made a significant contribution related to documenting software architectural decisions. However, not many studies have been conducted to assess the architectural decision-making and decision reuse processes through empirical investigations. Besides, the effect of the relationships among the actors in a software ecosystem on the architectural decisions-making process of each actor is not well studied. Goal: The objective of this paper is to identify the main processes and issues on the architectural decision-making in largescale enterprises by considering the relationships among the enterprises and other actors of the ecosystem. Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with six Norwegian companies in the software ecosystem of electricity industry. Results: Regarding the architectural decision-making process, the findings are in line with previous empirical studies, showing that most of the companies are not using well-known academic approaches such as ATAM, they are rather using their own procedures. The study also shows that the relationships among the actors of a software ecosystem could significantly affect the architectural-decision making process in each of the actors, for example, by limiting their alternative solutions. Finally, the results confirm that it is advantageous for the enterprises to reuse the architectural decisions across their various projects or for cooperative companies to reuse the decisions across their similar projects. Conclusion: Improving the reusable architectural decision frameworks by considering the relationships among the actors in a software ecosystem would be beneficial for the industry.