Olaf Zimmermann and his colleagues from IBM Research have developed last year an Architectural Decision Metamodel to facilitate Enterprise Application Development.
capturing architectural decisions remains a challenge for practicing architects. Reported inhibitors for capturing decisions include no appreciation from project sponsors, lack of time, and insufficient tool support
They propose a conceptual framework for three decision capturing steps:
- Decision identification - reality: decision identification [is] solely based on personal experience [and often] ad hoc
- Decision making - reality: decisions makers often are biased... They rely on past experiences ... [or] ... industry trends
- Decision enforcement - reality: coaching, architectural templates, and code reviews are the dominating decision enforcement approaches
