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1.3.3 On the Alignment between System Architectures and Organizational Structures
Author(s) -
Strandberg Tom,
Burton Herb,
Verma Dinesh
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2006.tb02732.x
Subject(s) - organizational structure , agile software development , maturity (psychological) , organizational architecture , process (computing) , process management , computer science , middleware (distributed applications) , capability maturity model , architecture , knowledge management , systems engineering , engineering , software engineering , management , psychology , developmental psychology , distributed computing , software , economics , programming language , operating system , art , visual arts
Enterprises of today need to be agile in how they manage systems over their life cycle. The design of system architectures has received a lot of focus as a means to facilitate agility. Less attention has been paid to the relationship of the system architecture to the organizational structures of all of the entities involved in the system life cycle. A common, but inadequate, statement is that “the organizational structure shall mirror the product structure”. This research introduces processes as “middleware”, along with system architecture and organizational structure, to be included in the trade‐off for effective system life cycle management. Important additional factors that must be considered include informal organizational structures and the maturity of products, process and organizations. This paper suggests a model of the problem description and recommendations for further research that can be adopted by practitioners and researchers in the fields of both engineering and organizational design. The paper builds on a previous paper by (Strandberg et al 2006) and elaborates on, in particular, the aspect of maturity.