Using Quality Attribute Workshops to Evaluate Architectural Design Approaches in a Major System Acquisition: A Case Study
July 2000 • Technical Note
John K. Bergey, Mario R. Barbacci, William G. Wood
This report describes a series of Quality Attribute Workshops (QAWs) that were conducted on behalf of a government agency during its competitive acquisition of a complex, tactical, integrated command and control system.
Publisher:
Software Engineering Institute
CMU/SEI Report Number
CMU/SEI-2000-TN-010
Subjects
Abstract
To a large extent, a system's software architecture determines the quality attributes of both the software and the entire system. It is also one of the earliest artifacts available for evaluation. For a Department of Defense (DoD) or government acquisition organization, the ability to evaluate software architectures early in the acquisition cycle can positively affect the delivered system. To assist a government organization in evaluating architectures, a series of Quality Attribute Workshops (QAWs) were planned and an initial set conducted as part of a competitive acquisition of a complex, integrated command and control system. The QAW is a lightweight (i.e., non-intrusive) version of the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI).