The Evolution of Architectural Decision Making as a Key Focus Area of Software Architecture Research: a Semi-Systematic Literature Study

EasyChair Preprint 2741

Abstract

Literature review studies are essential and form the foundation for any type of research. They serve as the point of departure for those seeking to understand a research topic, as well as, helps research communities to reflect on the ideas, fundamentals, and approaches that have emerged, been acknowledged, and formed the state-of-the-art. In this paper, we present a semi-systematic literature review of 218 papers published over the last four decades that have contributed to a better understanding of architectural design decisions (ADDs). These publications cover various related topics including tool support for managing ADDs, human aspects in architectural decision making (ADM), and group decision making. The results of this paper should be treated as a getting-started guide for researchers who are entering the investigation phase of research on ADM. In this paper, the readers will find a brief description of the contributions made by the established research community over the years. Based on those insights, we recommend our readers to explore the publications and the topics in depth.

Keyphrases: Architectural decision making, Design Decision Making, Group decision making, architectural decision, architectural design, architectural design decision, architectural design decisions, architectural knowledge, architecture decision making, architecture design, architecture design decision, decision making, design decision, literature review, software architectural design decision, software architecture, software architecture decision

@booklet{EasyChair:2741,
  author    = {Manoj Bhat and Klym Shumaiev and Uwe Hohenstein and Andreas Biesdorf and Florian Matthes},
  title     = {The Evolution of Architectural Decision Making as a Key Focus Area of Software Architecture Research: a Semi-Systematic Literature Study},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 2741},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}