Optimize Your Application Architecture

Ensure your application architecture reflects stakeholders' needs.
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Major Business Pain Points

Establish an enterprise architecture practice that:

  • Most organizations have some form of application architecture; however, it may not accurately and sufficiently support the current and rapidly changing business and technical environments.
  • In an attempt to enable quick delivery, applications are built and integrated haphazardly, typically omitting architecture quality practices.
  • However, architects are getting little traction on implementing solutions to improve architecture quality due to the challenge of tracing these solutions back to the right stakeholder objectives.
Optimize Your Application Architecture-Pain Points

Recommendations

Key Points

  • Well-received applications can have poor architectural qualities. Functional needs often take precedence over high quality architecture. Inadequate quality will eventually affect metrics if left out of the initial design.
  • Systems are designed in isolation. Cross-functional collaboration throughout design is critical to ensure all types of issues are revealed early. Otherwise, crucial tests are omitted, deployments fail, and end users are dissatisfied.

Approach

Optimize Your Application Architecture-Recommendations
  • Regularly review and recalibrate your application architecture so that it accurately reflects and supports current stakeholder needs and technical environments. Actively involve and consult stakeholders and technical teams throughout the architecture design process.
  • Translate stakeholder objectives into architecture requirements, solutions, and changes. Incorporate application architecture quality attributes in decisions to increase your architecture’s life.
  • Evaluate your application architecture from multiple views (i.e. use case, process, component, data, deployment, and system) to obtain a holistic perspective of the range of issues, risks, and opportunities to address.
  • Adopt the architecture patterns and styles that will help solve key design challenges. Create a reusable reference architecture that technical teams can use to discuss and implement architecture solutions and changes.
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Methodology and Tools

Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to enhance your application architecture, review the methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

  • Optimize Your Application Architecture – Executive Brief
  • Optimize Your Application Architecture – Phases 1-3

1. Define your stakeholder objectives

Understand the stakeholder objectives motivating application architecture and define application architecture quality attributes.

  • Enhance Your Application Architecture – Phase 1: Define Stakeholder Objectives
  • Application Architecture Design Template
  • Application Architecture Quality User Scenario Template

2. Assess your current application architecture

Understand the current state of your application architecture and identify its issues, risks, and opportunities.

  • Enhance Your Application Architecture – Phase 2: Assess Current Application Architecture

3. Define your target architecture and define your design process

Identify and justify architectural solutions and changes to address current issues and stakeholder needs and define a repeatable architecture design process.

  • Enhance Your Application Architecture – Phase 3: Design Target Architecture and Define Design Process

All resources on this page are provided to Cyber Leadership Hub members under license from third parties including Info-Tech Research Group Inc, a global leader in providing IT research and advice.