When you use the term architect, most people think of people who design buildings or maybe even bridges, but most people don’t think of software. It seems perfectly natural to pay someone a considerable sum to create plans for you new home or office building so why not for the software that runs your business?

All to often organizations large and small believe that software design “Architecture” is a waste of time. It’s so much easier to hire some developers, give them a brief description of what you want and throw them in a room to start coding. Oh, and we can’t forget the age old question “How long is this going to take?”. I love this question.

If you build DVD players, do you think you could tell me how long it is going to take to build one. What if I told you I wanted it to have fast forward, fast rewind and a remote control? Still no? Why? Because you don’t know what your building because I have only told you the most basic, and obvious features. So we clarify some and I want language choice, parental lock, random play and I want it to play my audio CD. So let’s get started and I’ll see you next week to check on your progress.

Next week, we meet and you show me your progress. You have the major components in place and should have it finished by the end of the week. Great news! And then I ask “So, where is the digital video and surround sound output?”. Your heart sinks and you exclaim “You didn’t ask for that!”. But isn’t that a normal feature? Maybe, maybe not. It’s easy to understand that a change to digital vidoe and surround sound will not be easy and cause you to change hardware components. It’s not so easy to understand when the same scenario happens with software. It’s just not as evident.

The full Article is posted at http://www.dmcarter.com/?p=22