Managing Architectural Risk

No life cycle fully addresses a product’s architectural risks—that is the risk that the architecture your project team has selected will be sufficient for your needs. Until the code that represents the architecture is written and integrated, it’s impossible to tell whether the architecture works. I’ve worked with many project teams who chose a serial (waterfall or phase-gate) life cycle because they were convinced that the serial life cycle addressed the architectural risks. Unfortunately, it does not. And because final integration and testing occur last in a waterfall life cycle, the waterfall or stage-gate is actually the riskiest for managing architectural risks.

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