On Systems Architects and Systems Architecting: some thoughts on explaining and improving the art and science of systems architecting

摘要

ISO’s process to adopt the IEEE 1471 standard on architecture descriptions has revealed of the order of 130 standards concerning or relating to architectures and architecting. Within the “enterprise architecture” theme alone, different people use the term to refer to mean quite different things: the “architecture of the enterprise as a system”; the enterprise context for the enterprise IT system; or the architecture of the enterprise IT system itself. A focus on tools and methods has led to confusion between the creative activity of “architecting”, by which I mean making or exposing the key strategic decisions about the purpose, organisation, behaviour and critical design features of the system, and the analytical and descriptive activity of architecture modelling, which supports and captures the results of architecting. The INCOSE UK Architecture Working Group established a “belief systems” methodology to explore and seek to reconcile the many conflicting views on architecting This paper expands on the views presented by the author at the IS08 Architecture panel session in an effort to identify and communicate a better understanding of the fundamental skills, principles, philosophy and approach underpinning effective systems architecting. It seeks to improve their integration by focusing on “purpose, context and process” of architecting with the perspective that “hard systems exist inside soft systems”, and to show that “lean pull” allows architecting to focus on the intended use of its products rather than adherence to process standard or frameworks.