Architecting Processes are Key to Software Quality

In this position paper we explain why Architecting Processes, namely processes for using architectures to develop software, should receive more attention. Architectures are viewed as software engineering artifacts that can be used as the basis for developing superior software products. But the development of these products should still be accomplished with the guidance of processes. The processes are themselves software artifacts that should be developed in such a way as to demonstrably assure that they achieve their goals and requirements. Architecting Processes should be developed to demonstrably assure that software products are of high quality. Different processes will have different effectiveness in assuring this. Different architecture definition formalisms will be of differing value in supporting these different processes. The selection of an architecture definition formalism should, therefore, be strongly determined by the choice of Architecting Processes, and the goals and requirements that they must satisfy.