Tool-Driven Technology Transfer to Support Software Architecture Decisions

Software architecture design decisions are key drivers for the success of software systems. Despite awareness for their criticality, software architects often rationalize and document their decisions poorly. On this behalf, ABB Corporate Research initiated a technology transfer project to integrate an architecture decision framework from the University of Groningen into ABB software development processes. The project involved close communication between university researchers, industry researchers, and ABB software architects and resulted in the implementation of a plug-in for the UML tool Enterprise Architect. This paper summarizes success factors for the technology transfer, such as strong buy-in from the stakeholders, short feedback cycles, and seamless integration into existing tool-chains.