Communicating Architectural Knowledge - Requirements for Software Architecture Knowledge Management Tools

Author(s):

Schwittek, Widura

Name of Event:

ECSA 2010

Location:

Kopenhagen, Dänemark

Date:

25.08.2010

Keywords:

software architecture, architectural knowledge, knowledge communication

Abstract

Architecting is a communication intensive task in which architectural
knowledge is shared between the architect and the stakeholders. The software
architect’s communicative action is often conducted face-to-face, e.g. in presentations
and workshops. A software architecture documentation as a carrier of
explicit architectural knowledge can also be seen as an architect’s communicative
action. This perspective opens the door for treating a software architecture
documentation as an expression of an asynchronous knowledge communication
process enabling the application of principles from communication theory. In
this paper this perspective is taken and specific requirements are derived for
software architecture knowledge management tools with respect to the contextoriented
communication model.