Software Engineering Institute

The Software Architecture Technology Initiative at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has developed a number of architecture-centric methods that are currently in use. The initiative is now focusing on integrating these methods, as well as building bridges between them and software-development processes and software-architecture efforts outside the SEI, while continuing to refine existing methods and models. The goal is to provide software architects with a comprehensive, end-to-end approach for creating and using the right software architecture for the job at hand.

This technical note reports on a proposal to integrate the SEI Quality Attribute Workshop (QAW) and the SEI Attribute-Driven Design (ADD) method. The QAW is a way to elicit and articulate detailed quality attribute requirements for a system, which the architecture must support. ADD is an architectural design method that starts with statements of quality attribute requirements and guides the architect through a series of design decisions that help to meet those requirements. Integrating these methods involves tailoring the QAW to provide the types of results needed by ADD and tailoring the ADD method to take full advantage of the results provided by the QAW.