Platform design space exploration using architecture decision viewpoints–A longitudinal study

Abstract

The paper presents a technical action research study with ABB in Sweden.Decision viewpoints were validated for platform design space exploration.Decision viewpoints are suitable for dealing with diverging stakeholder concerns.They are also very efficient for evaluating technological alternatives. Design space exploration is the simultaneous analysis of problem and solution spaces for a specific domain or application scope. Performing this activity as part of the architectural design is beneficial, especially for software platforms, which are shared across organizations. Exploring the design space of software platforms in a multi-product and multi-domain context is not trivial, and only few methods exist to support this activity systematically.This paper reports on a longitudinal technical action research (TAR) study conducted to adapt and evaluate architecture decision viewpoints for supporting platform design space exploration. The study was conducted in the context of an ABB project, which was performed to explore the design space for a common software platform for mobile device support in several product-specific software platforms at ABB.The results indicate that the adapted decision viewpoints are well suitable for dealing with diverging stakeholder concerns, evaluating technological alternatives and uncovering relationships between decisions to be made.