Has platform architecture design documentation become a lost art? Over the past decade, we have observed this trend across many IT organizations. It seems to have eroded inversely proportionally to the growth of Agile. Agile’s manifesto of “working software over comprehensive documentation” appears to be misinterpreted as “working software and no documentation”, an unfortunate casualty of Agile’s intent.
We trace the downfall of useful and practical architecture design documentation to the rebellion against the Waterfall method of the SDLC. Justifiably, taking three to six months to design a platform (after taking several months to gather requirements) before build begins, is not a recipe for organizations to remain competitive. Innovation requires much faster throughput, which Agile serves well. However, responsible design plans remain a critical ingredient that should not be relegated to the old way of doing things. We argue it should instead be re-embraced and celebrated as a skill to be proud of and an essential ingredient that accelerates build.
Read more in the latest position paper from DayBlink Consulting’s Cybersecurity Group here: Justin Whitaker on Medium.
About the Authors
Justin Whitaker is a Partner and Practice Lead of DayBlink Consulting’s Cyber Security Group.