Activity: Agree on Technical Approach
Reach agreement on a viable technical approach to developing the solution.
Extends: Agree on Technical Approach
Work Breakdown Structure
Description

The goal of this activity is to define a technical approach to the system that supports the project requirements, within the constraints placed on the system and the development team. The architect should do the following:

  • Work with the team to create an initial sketch of the technical approach to the proposed system
  • Ensure that the technical decisions are adequately captured and communicated
  • Ensure that the team has enough information to understand the approach that your are taking

The work done here does not seek to produce a detailed and comprehensive technical specification for the system. Rather, the approach should be to decide the overall technical approach at a high level.

You should focus on proving the architecture with working software. If the solution is similar to a previously produced solution (or is a well-known solution domain), then it will probably be good enough to reference that example as evidence of the feasibility of the approach. In some cases, it may be necessary to develop one or more prototypes to validate some of the decisions or clarify some of the requirements.

The conclusion of this work should produce just enough information to communicate the architecture to the team, and to demonstrate its viability to the customer. This allows the project to move forward, enabling you to refine and baseline the architecture.

Workflow

Activity detail diagram: Agree on Technical Approach Architect Document Architectural Decisions Outline Component Model Architect Architectural Decisions Architecture Overview Outline Component Model Component Model Architecture Overview Architectural Decisions Outline Component Model
Work Breakdown