Conceptual Integrity

It’s a well known fact that deciding what exactly to build is the hardest part of software development. So how does one deal with complexity and uncertainly? Sanity is retained and complexity managed by maintaining conceptual integrity in your solution. This goes beyond the conceptual integrity of the architecture, but the conceptual integrity of a solution.

As an architect who will start working from a set of initial requirements (and later work with the requirements management team to refine requirements) you need to understand why a business problem is being presented in a given way and why it’s being solved in a given way. The business problem and the conceptual solution need to be rational and need make sense as a whole. It’s not necessary, moreover – counterproductive, to have details at this level, but having a conceptual integrity of a solution before investing heavily into architecture design and analysis is paramount.

Constantin K.
Firebrand Architect™
www.SoftwareArchitectures.com