Abstract
This paper presents the theoretical and practical benefits from a case study using a the Architecture Business Cycle to understand the management of software architecture at an automotive manufacturer. The study was done to prepare for architectural changes driven by new technology and in the automotive business environment. Our results show that the architecture business cycle worked well in defining the theoretical context for the study after some modifications; the architecture had to be precisely defined in the interview situation to gain more useful data rather than broad generalisations. Further contributions of the study were a deeper understanding of role of the architecture and it’s position among other artefacts in the organisation, and an increased focus on architectural issues in management meetings. The study also indirectly affected a subsequent re-organisation.
1. Introduction
As all other car manufacturers, Volvo Car Corporation (VCC) is facing tough times and there is a strong demand to develop in-vehicle software with shorter lead times and improved quality. Several authors have identified that one key element to accomplish this, as well as handle the increasing complexity that follows the ever-increasing feature content, lays in the establishment of a software architecture [1]–[4]. For example, Broy states “The enormous complexity of software in cars asks for an appropriate structuring by architectures in layers and levels of abstraction” [3]. But not just any architecture will meet the challenges described, the architecture in question must address the relevant business forces and the architecture must actually be used as a guide for the software development in the organisation. The first step towards improvement in working with architecture in an organisation is to capture the present situation, i.e. to identify the actual forces shaping the architecture, how well the architecture is used, and if the architecture actually helps in addressing the present challenges. In this particular case we wanted to capture how the Electronic and Electric Systems Engineering (EESE) unit at Volvo Cars viewed the present software architecture, originating from 1998, and how the architecture affected the work of the developers within the unit. Of particular interest to the architect running the study were the business forces and feedbacks involved in eventual implicit decisions concerning the architecture and how homogeneous the view on software architecture was among people working at the EESE unit. In order to get that understanding, we performed the case study presented in this article. We choose to base the case study on the Architecture Business Cycle, originally presented by Bass et al [5], with the goal this would help identify potential areas for future study and improvement when developing software. As a side benefit we also draw some conclusions about the applicability of using the architecture business cycle to understand the role of 3 partial scenarios of a software architecture in the automotive industry in practice. The contributions from this study are a procedure to capture an instance of the general architecture business cycle [5]–[7], with some modifications to the cycle to keep a manageable scope of our study, and the conclusion that the architecture business cycle works well as a theoretical framework for practical studies. We find the main contribution to be a rich empirical

Download full report
http://googleurl?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ve..._98984.pdf&ei=2iRTTpzVHNHxrQeh8ZnEDg&usg=AFQjCNE6He4SCFDn3kzACvHyiTuK85DZpg