Making Architecture Design Decisions: An Economic Approach

Abstract

The resources available to build any system are finite. The decisions involved in building any nontrivial system are complex and typically involve many stakeholders, many requirements, and many technical decisions. The stakeholders have an interest in ensuring that good design decisions are made decisions that meet their technical objectives and their tolerance for risk. These decisions should, as much as possible, maximize the benefit that the system provides and minimize its cost. The Cost Benefit Analysis Method (CBAM) was created to provide some structure to this decision-making process. The CBAM analyzes architectural decisions from the perspectives of cost, benefit, schedule, and risk. While the CBAM does not make decisions for the stakeholders, it does serve as a tool to inform managers and to structure the inquiry so that rational decisions can be made. This report describes the steps of the CBAM and its application to a real-world system.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA408740

Entities

People

  • Jai Asundi
  • Mark Klien
  • Rick Kazman

Organizations

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Case Studies
  • Climate Change
  • Commerce
  • Cost Benefit Analysis
  • Cost Estimates
  • Cost Models
  • Costs
  • Data Centers
  • Data Processing
  • Department Of Defense
  • Economics
  • Engineering
  • Governments
  • Probability
  • Side Effects
  • Software Development
  • United States

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Medical or Health Care Field.
  • Systems Analysis and Design