Sociotechnical Architecture Reviews: Understanding Teams, Not Just Artefacts

At first glance, software architecture appears to be a purely technical artefact. So it should be possible to review it solely as such—or should it? In reality, an architecture is the outcome of a team’s work and a response to stakeholder requirements. It therefore makes much more sense to review architecture as the product of a sociotechnical system. This perspective shifts the emphasis from technical artefacts to the people behind them, their goals, and their interactions. Experience has shown that this approach provides a more efficient and effective way to understand architectures than many traditional review methods. Attendees will see how sociotechnical reviews work in practice and leave with practical techniques to improve the effectiveness of their own reviews.