Grounded Architectures: Using Grounded Theory for the Design of Software Architectures
Habtom Kahsay Gidey, Diego Marmsoler, Jonas Eckhardt · 2017
Context: Designing new architectures is a challenging task. A common and also effective approach for this task is to apply architectural design experience. Problem: If, however, architectural design experience is not available, two major problems arise: (i) how can we identify architecturally significant requirements (ASRs) and (ii) how can we identify architectural design decisions (ADDs) which address those ASRs?Approach: To address these problems, we propose an approach to systematically elicit ASRs and identify ADDs based on grounded theory (GT). By using GT, our approach provides transparency and fosters objectivity: ASRs as well as ADDs are elicited by qualitative data analysis and each ADD is motivated by corresponding ASRs. While objectivity addresses the correctness of the identified ASRs and ADDs, transparency allows for assessing ADDs with respect to the corresponding ASRs. Evaluation: We evaluate our approach by a case study in which we apply it to develop an architecture in the context of the technology trend "appification".