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How Software Architects Focus Their Attention

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Software Architecture (ECSA 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 12857))

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Abstract

As part of our software architecture research and practice we have found that a common difficulty for new architects is knowing where to focus their attention to maximise their effectiveness. This led us to wonder whether successful experienced architects have any common techniques or heuristics that they use to help them achieve this. In an earlier study where, having interviewed experienced architects, we found that in fact there were some common heuristics that they use, we created a simple model based on an analysis of their advice. In this paper we explain how we validated that model with a wider survey of experienced enterprise and software architects and, from the findings of that study, extended the model with an additional dimension. This resulted in our model having four primary guidelines, which are: focus on stakeholder needs and priorities, prioritise time according to risks, delegate as much as possible, and ensure team effectiveness.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/focusing-software-architects-attention-eoin-woods.

  2. 2.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/revisiting-how-people-prioritise-software-work-eoin-woods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of East London, University Way, London, 16 2RD, UK

    Eoin Woods & Rabih Bashroush

Authors
  1. Eoin Woods
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  2. Rabih Bashroush
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eoin Woods .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Information Systems Engineering, Technische Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Stefan Biffl

  2. University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain

    Elena Navarro

  3. Department of Computer Science, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden

    Welf Löwe

  4. Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden

    Marjan Sirjani

  5. Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy

    Raffaela Mirandola

  6. KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Danny Weyns

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Woods, E., Bashroush, R. (2021). How Software Architects Focus Their Attention. In: Biffl, S., Navarro, E., Löwe, W., Sirjani, M., Mirandola, R., Weyns, D. (eds) Software Architecture. ECSA 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12857. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86044-8_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86044-8_21

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-86043-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-86044-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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