Continuous architecture: Towards the goldilocks zone and away from vicious circles

Paper i proceeding, 2019

This paper identifies three improvement areas related to system design and architecture, where an organization can change to better support continuous integration and continuous delivery: 'The product's architecture', 'Ways to work with system design and architecture', and 'The role of the architect'. The three improvement areas are based on a literature review, two series of interviews and a cross-company workshop with three case-study companies. Furthermore, the paper proposes three actionable strategies corresponding to the three identified improvement areas: 'Systems with a modular and loosely coupled architecture', 'A balanced approach where system design and architecture is focused on the system's most important characteristics', and 'Architects shifting perspective from control to facilitation'.