Busting Software Architecture Beliefs A Survey on Success Factors in Architecture Decision Making

Paper in proceeding, 2016

As software development changes, also the myths and beliefs around it come and go. In different communities, different beliefs are kept, usually strengthened by success or failure stories. In this research, we study the beliefs surrounding software architecture. The beliefs range from the amount of effort needed for architecture documentation, to the size of the team or the persons responsible for making the architectural decisions. Most beliefs are based on the idea that the outcome of the project is highly dependent on the methods used during the design and development of software. We conducted a survey with 39 architects where we evaluated 54 architectural decisions. In this survey, we assessed the way in which decisions were made, the success factors of the decisions, as well as the properties of the projects. We conduct statistical analysis in order to evaluate some of the beliefs that currently exist in software development. We conclude that for most of the beliefs, no statistical evidence can be found, making these beliefs folklore for the tales, instead of useful guidelines for predicting projects success or failure.