Integrating Agile Practices into Architectural Assumption Management
Chen Yang, Peng Liang, Paris Avgeriou · 2019
Although managing architectural assumptions can benefit software development in several aspects (e.g., reducing architectural misunderstanding and mismatch), the effort required is a key obstacle towards employing architectural assumption management in practice. One potential solution is to apply agile practices in order to reduce this effort. To this end, we conducted a survey with 91 practitioners to investigate the possibility of integrating agile practices into architectural assumption management in industrial practice. The results offer an overview of which agile practices can be integrated in architectural assumption management and how. Six agile practices were selected by more than half of the subjects: "Backlog", "Iterative and Incremental Development", "Refactoring", "Continuous Integration", "Effective Communication", and "Just Enough Work". Twelve agile practices were further elaborated by the subjects regarding how they can be used in architectural assumption management. Based on the survey results, we developed a classification of agile practices for agile architectural assumption management, which can act as a reference for researchers and practitioners to employ certain agile practices in architectural assumption management.