97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know

Chapter 79. Take Responsibility for Your Decisions

Yi Zhou is currently the chief software architect in a well-known biotech company, and specializes in designing the software platform for medical devices and personalizing disease management. He has nearly 20 years' experience in all aspects of the software development life cycle, and excels in business-technology alignment and strategic planning, process improvement, architecture and framework design, team building and management, and consulting.

—Yi Zhou

SOFTWARE ARCHITECTS HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for their decisions, as they have much more influential power in software projects than most people in organizations. Studies of software projects show that more than two-thirds of them either are outright failures or deliver unsuccessfully (deadline slip, budget overruns, or low customer satisfaction). Many of the root causes point to improper decisions software architects made, or failures of follow-through on the right architectural decisions.

How can you become a responsible software architect who makes effective architectural decisions?

First, you have to be fully cognizant of your decision process, whether it is agile or ceremonial. You should not claim that an architectural decision has been made until the following two conditions are met:

• A decision has been put in writing because architectural decisions are rarely trivial. They ...