In my opinion we can’t. Agile architecture is confusing and sounds plain wrong, at least to me who rather think of stability and considered flexibility than quick and nimble.
I can agree that using the phrase “Agile architecture” sets a certain context which can give a reader or listener a notion of what is to be discussed but I still don’t like it. In a similar fashion I don’t like Lean architecture even though I think that the Lean values (the ones that differ from “agile”) fit better with architecture on many accounts. But what is a Lean architecture? Really?
I rather say just architecture. To me the field of software and systems architecture is constantly evolving and the truths I thought correct a couple of years ago are considered mouldy and obsolete today (or maybe I just understand a bigger picture now than back then). It’s important though to point out that what’s evolving is the way we approach architecture, how we work with it etc., whereas the technical aspects don’t evolve as fast; e.g. patterns is still an essential concept, domains as well.
So architecture is architecture but what about Lean and Agile?
Well, I would much rather phrase it along the lines of “Architecture for Lean/Agile organizations/development”. The technical tool-box of architecture doesn’t really differ if you are applying RUP, Scrum or grand scale waterfall, but how you approach it might (and probably will) differ.
I still think architecture is very important in order to reduce cost and make development, maintenance and destruction more efficient so to neglect it would be wrong in my world, but I do think we need to do it a bit differently to achieve better results.
- We need to include more people with different expertise in the beginning to envision where we are heading.
- Someone can “own” the architecture as his/hers main concern but we should embrace that everyone contributes to the architecture.
- Product management is recognized as a central piece of the puzzle to continuous success and architecture is very tightly coupled to PM.
- The architecture needs to be documented but we need to improve this area heavily (the old large system architecture descriptions won’t cut it). Documentation should preferably be in such form that it conveys the architecture automatically so reduce the textual descriptions to be the rationale that is needed to understand (and be to the point). Instead document architecture in e.g. code directly where possible, or as structure in an information platform etc. I.e. make the documentation part of the solution.
Architecture is good and well-needed but don’t confuse yourself that there is a hip new cool agile architecture out there. I have.
Have.
