The influence of the concept of capability-based management on the development of the systems engineering discipline

This paper explores the implications of a capability-based conceptual approach on the development of the systems engineering (SE) discipline. It deals with the identification of some potential limits and gaps of traditional SE approaches and demonstrates the need for new and innovative developments which support the concept of capability based engineering, especially as applied in the military domain and networking environments. The innovative approaches include partnership for capability planning and service descriptions for capability representations. The paper also presents a very brief assessment of the state-of-the-art of cognate domains such as capability based planning alongside requirements engineering and management, and considers the extent to which they address capability based concepts. The related concepts of system of systems (SoS) and the endeavour to extend SE to SoS are necessarily addressed

An empirical study of architecting for continuous delivery and deployment

Recently, many software organizations have been adopting Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment (CD) practices to develop and deliver quality software more frequently and reliably. Whilst an increasing amount of the literature covers different aspects of CD, little is known about the role of software architecture in CD and how an application should be (re-) architected to enable and support CD. We have conducted a mixed-methods empirical study that collected data through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 21 industrial practitioners from 19 organizations, and a survey of 91 professional software practitioners. Based on a systematic and rigorous analysis of the gathered qualitative and quantitative data, we present a conceptual framework to support the process of (re-) architecting for CD. We provide evidence-based insights about practicing CD within monolithic systems and characterize the principle of "small and independent deployment units" as an alternative to the monoliths. Our framework supplements the architecting process in a CD context through introducing the quality attributes (e.g., resilience) that require more attention and demonstrating the strategies (e.g., prioritizing operations concerns) to design operations-friendly architectures. We discuss the key insights (e.g., monoliths and CD are not intrinsically oxymoronic) gained from our study and draw implications for research and practice.Comment: To appear in Empirical Software Engineerin

The Influence of Cognitive Biases on Architectural Technical Debt

Cognitive biases exert a significant influence on human thinking and decision-making. In order to identify how they influence the occurrence of architectural technical debt, a series of semi-structured interviews with software architects was performed. The results show which classes of architectural technical debt originate from cognitive biases, and reveal the antecedents of technical debt items (classes) through biases. This way, we analysed how and when cognitive biases lead to the creation of technical debt. We also identified a set of debiasing techniques that can be used in order to prevent the negative influence of cognitive biases. The observations of the role of organisational culture in the avoidance of inadvertent technical debt throw a new light on that issue.Comment: Presented at 2021 IEEE 18th International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA) 202