Enhancing the software architecture analysis and design process with inferred macro-architectural requirements

Traditionally the flow of authoritative information and control in requirements and software engineering is from requirements to architecture, design, development, implementation and testing. Iterative, spiral and agile methods, among others, have introduced increments and iterations in eliciting and discovering requirements within the project life cycle. Yet the authoritative flow of information across organizational boundaries within the enterprise continues to be from requirements to architecture to design. We argue that two additional implicit sources of information should be included in the requirements engineering process, contextual environment concerns and architectural patterns and heuristics. To account for these two sources of implicit requirements information we introduce the concept of forward and backward inferred macro-architectural requirements. Forward inferred macro-architectural requirements are elicited from contextual environment concerns. Backward inferred macro-architectural requirements are extracted through a reverse requirements elicitation process from architectural heuristics and patterns. We have observed significant improvements in the efficiency of the development processes and the quality of the final software products as a result of making inferred macro-architectural requirements explicit.