Agility and Architecture: Can They Coexist?

Software architecture is taking a bad rap with many agile proponents; big up-front design, massive documentation, smell of waterfall, it is pictured as a non-agile practice, something we do not want to even consider; though everybody want to be called an architect. However, certain classes of system, ignoring architectural issues too long “hit a wall” and collapse by lack of an architectural focus. Agile architecture: a paradox, an oxymoron, two totally incompatible approaches? In this paper we review the real issues at stake, past the rhetoric and posturing, and we suggest that the two cultures can coexist and support each other, where appropriate.