Software Engineering

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6.3 
Architecture-driven software development
and schedule if there are sufficient resources to ensure project success. Otherwise, 
changes should be scheduled for a future revision.
Establishment of a software architecture permits the software implementation 
effort to be properly scoped, planned, and accomplished efficiently. Each struc-
tural unit identified by the physical architecture is adequately specified to permit 
programmatic-level design, coding, and testing. The software integration strategy is 
established during detailed architecture definition to permit software integration and 
testing to proceed according to an established work plan. The software work break-
down structure identifies the work packages and resources allocated to each soft-
ware implementation activity. The result should be an uncomplicated, systematic 
software implementation and testing of a complete software product deliverable.
This assessment of the Agile methodology acknowledges that software imple-
mentation is difficult to plan and accomplish in an organized manner if there is no 
software architecture. Software engineering establishes the structural foundation 
upon which the software implementation plan can be predicated. What must be 
appreciated is that any software methodology or approach that ignores the value 
of a software architecture is doomed to fail. 
Figure 6.7
 depicts the software devel-
opment Venn diagram including both software engineering and the Agile method-
ology. This model can be altered to accommodate any software implementation 
methodology. Simply insert the preferred software implementation methodology 
wherever the term Agile appears!
FIGURE 6.7
Software development combining software engineering and Agile.

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Software  
Engineering 
Practices
SECTION
2
This section introduces the six software engineering practices that are utilized to 
develop the software architecture. These practices provide the underlying founda-
tion for all engineering disciplines and are uniquely customized for each discipline. 
These software engineering practices have been adapted from the system engineer-
ing discipline because they deal with controlling product complexity. Each of the 
practices is expressed in a set of tasks that contribute to exploring a problem/solu-
tion space in a quest for a viable, affordable architectural resolution.
These practices are not independent and must be applied iteratively and recur-
sively, as needed, to devise a material solution or further constrain the problem 
space to enable a feasible solution to be realized. The practices apply iteratively to 
permit a problem/solution space to be explored in a layered approach. In addition, 
the practices must be applied iteratively to reconsider implications of architectural 
decisions on previously defined elements of the architecture. This iterative appli-
cation of software engineering practices permits a problem/solution space to be 
refined in a top-down, structured approach.

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