Software Engineering Institute

Designing a software architecture requires access to domain knowledge and experience, combined with the ability to make good decisions based on partial information. We present the Software Architecture Warehouse (SAW, http://design.inf.usi.ch/software/saw), a Web-based tool that supports distributed architecture design teams by managing their shared knowledge and enabling consensus-based decision making.

After introducing the extensible knowledge meta-model of SAW, we will present various scenarios of in-meeting design-dialogue mapping and discussion support, along with visual aids. We will demonstrate how SAW can be used to induce synergy effects between knowledge reuse and remote collaboration. We claim that giving immediate feedback to the whole design team about the implications and constraints of a design decision results in an improvement in the quality of decisions made.

This presentation was given at SATURN 2011 in Burlingame, CA.