Decision-making tools

I found a usefull description of two decision-making tools I've being using in my practice for a while now. They are:

• Decision matrix, used to narrow a list of options to one choice
• Multivoting, used to shorten a long list of possibilities

I freequently use decision matrix in choosing between candidate solutions or technologies. To get a manageable size matrix I use multivoting on both dimensions (solutions and criteria). There is lots of benefits on using those tools, one of them being the level of support that can gained for the final solution.

Template for Evaluating Architecture Descriptions

Here is a template for evaluating the quality of an architecture documentation, recently published at the IASA's content repository.

The template is organized according the four main aspects, namely:

1. Stakeholder and purpose
2. Content quality
3. Presentation and visualisation
4. Management

Each aspect is analyzed in a separate section, containing evaluation questions and metrics organized in subsections (or criterias).

Feedback about this template can be e-mailed to the authors at: jouni.markkula@oulu.fi and niina.hamalainen@aditro.com.

ATAM Presentations

I found this two great presentations on ATAM (Architectural Trade Off Analysis Method) -- the architecture evaluation method developed at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI):

• Architectural Trade Off Analysis Method, by Len Bass explains how to apply ATAM.
• Architecture Evaluation in Practice, by Dragos Manolescu shares insights gained at the ThoughtWorks' Architecture Evaluation practice.

Both presentations where recorded at JAOO -- European developer conference on software technology, methods and best practices.