On the Interaction of Social Issues and Software Architecture

Most technical fields such as traditional engineering and building architecture have various standard procedures or patterns that can be applied in various scenarios as solutions to recurring problems. In software engineering/architecture however, there are no such standard procedures, the closest we have is in design patterns, and this document represents a variety of those patterns. The twist that is added by this document is one that is often ignored...the culture and structure of the organization. Knowing the social composition of a development team goes a long way to help improve the outcome of a project because it capitalizes on the strengths of the team and also prevents confusion that would otherwise result from unhealthy overlaps. Along with these strategies of divide-and-conquer applied to improve team coordination in development comes the challenge of putting the divided parts back together, and this document does a good job of revealing some of those flags. Most patterns are published listing the flamboyance of applying the patterns; however, very few actually emphasize some of the pitfalls of the patterns--this document does a good job in raising these flags.