You'd think there would be plenty of information available.
Recently our local IASA chapter had a session on Improving Software Architecture Competence, so I threw together some thoughts to present.
I figured it would be pretty easy. There must be lots of documented experience of what individuals or organisations have done to improve themselves, right? Well, there doesn't seem to be. There is plenty of information about sw architecture course syllabuses (e.g., IASA's own education program) and no shortage of opinion about what software architects should do/read, but almost no experience reports saying, “this is what we tried and this is what we learned about trying to improve our software architecture competence”. (BTW, there may be some out there – I don't claim to have done any more exhaustive research than some simple googling).
However, I did dig up two interesting articles to summarise, and I think they are useful reading for someone interested in the topic. The first questions the ability for any sw architect to learn and improve using the kind of education techniques we currently have. The second – a workshop on improving software architecture competence – is the sole experience report I could find.
- “On System Design”, was an Essay delivered at OOPSLA a few years ago by Jim Waldo. In it, Waldo laments what he sees as a decline in the art and craft of system design. He points out a number of reasons for this, but the the most relevant here is his observation that we are unable to adequately train people in system design the prescriptive techniques we currently use. Indeed when considering the qualities of good designers, how they think and work may be more important than what courses they have done.
- An experience report summarising the result of a workshop on improving software architecture competence that was hosted by the SEI. The report summarises 5 experience reports from organisations, plus an acedemic perspective, who have a competence improvement program in place. There also exists a related presentation and podcast that summarises a survey the SEI did of the architecture community that led to their own software architecture competence program and framework.
"...good design is a capability that some people have, and others simply do not...
Whether this is an innate skill that people are born with, or one that is cultivated over time in ways that we don’t understand, is a question far too deep for me to address here. I neither know nor care...
But by the time someone is designing a computer system, whatever it takes to be a good designer is either there or it is not. When it is there, it can be developed and honed. It can also be degraded or warped. But when it is not there, there is no technique or process that can make up the deficit..."
"Everyone I talked to had a similar story of the master designer who had, either consciously or by example and correction taught him or her what they considered to be the important lessons in design
... Design, if my experience is any indication, is best learned by a long and varied process of trying, failing, and trying again under the guidance of someone who is an expert at the task". Waldo, On System Design
On a related note. I'm looking forward to Fred Brooks' upcoming book, The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist
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