Upcoming Software Architecture workshops:
- Las Vegas, NV March 14-17, 2006
- Washington, DC, November 14-17, 2006

Upcoming Enterprise Architecture workshops:

Introduction

The following is a random sample of flip charts created by teams in the September 2005 Software Architecture Workshop in Indianapolis. (The randomness was caused by pressure to get out of the meeting room because the hotel staff needed to set up for another event.) This was the first time that any of us worked on HelpMatch, and we made considerable progress on all phases of the architecture requirements gathering and architecture specification work which is not adequately reflected in the charts below.

Charts from HelpMatch Requirements

• Context Map
• Use Case Diagram 1
• Use Case Diagram 2
• Use Case Diagram 3
• Register Use Case and Variations
• Enter Goods Use Case
• Donation Use Case and Variations
• Needs Matching Use Case
• Usability Quality

Charts from HelpMatch Architecture

• Ease of Use Principle
• Open Standards Principle and Implications
• Conceptual Architecture Diagram 1
• Conceptual Architecture Diagram 2
• Goods CRC-R (Component-Responsibility-Collaborator-Rationale)
• Catalog CRC-R
• Needs Match CRC-R
• Component Sequence Diagram
• Component Collaboration Diagram

Note: I am much more in favor of generating enthusiasm for the power of visual modeling than being pedantic, especially on early encounter, about notation. Also, we encourage architects to just get going, to throw ideas onto flip charts (Eli Lilly architects use a room with walls entirely--floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall--wallpapered with whiteboard covering so they can use markers literally everywhere, and digital cameras for preservation--awesome)!  Once we have a starting point we can assess how well we are doing against requirements and keep revising the architecture, assessing tradeoffs, and deepening our understanding of the challenges we are up against, and getting creative about addressing them because it is "cheap" to change a sketch on a flip chart (or wall, in Lilly's case).

See Your Comments and Contributions Here

You are invited to contribute to the Architecture of HelpMatch. We will organize and post comments here.

Changes to this Webpage

Please let Ruth Malan at Bredemeyer Consulting know if you have any suggestions for HelpMatch in general, and for this web page in particular.