Role: MAS Designer

Medee Common Role

Relationships


Primary Performs	Define Feature Model Design Capability Diagram Design Plan Diagram Extend Actor Model Identify Actor Capability Identify Agent Capability Perform Feature to Design Mapping Refine Commonalities and Variabilities xxxMTV Map between Feature Model and Analysis Artifacts
Additionally Performs	Analyze Goals and Plans Define Decision Model Define Domain Scope Define System Actor Develop source code for MAS components using Annotation Develop source code for MAS components using Delta oriented programming Develop source code for MAS components using feature oriented programming Generate MAS Product Code Identify Stakeholders Implement Agent using Jack MAS Application Engineering Requirement Analysis Perform Feature to Implementation Mapping Perform MAS Domain Implementation Testing Select existing reusable MAS implementation artifacts xxIdentify Stakeholders for SPL Final Product xxxAnalyze Goals and Plans for SPL Final Product
Modifies	[Domain Analysis slot] Feature Model Feature to MAS Components Mapping Tropos Actor Capability List Tropos Agent Type Capability List Tropos Capability Diagram Tropos Extended Actor Diagram Tropos Plan Diagram
Process Usage	Gaia with Reuse - Delta Configuration v.1 - Full Gaia with Synthesis & FODA > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Design Phase > Design Organization with Gaia > MAS Designer Gaia with Reuse - Delta Configuration v.1 - Full Gaia with Synthesis & FODA > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Implementation Phase > Select existing reusable Implementation Artifacts > MAS Designer Gaia with Reuse - Delta Configuration v.1 - Full Gaia with Synthesis & FODA > Application Engineering Iteration 1..n > Product Derivation Phase > Generate MAS Final Product with SPL > MAS Designer MMF Analyze Agent with Tropos > Analyze Agent with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Analyze Architectural Style with Tropos > Analyze Architectural Style with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Application Requirement Analysis with ApelEtAl > Perform MAS Application Requirement Analysis > MAS Designer MMF Define SPL Feature Model with FODA > Define MAS-PL Feature Model > MAS Designer MMF Design Agent with Tropos > Design Agent with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Detail Requirement with Tropos > Detail Requirement with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Develop Annotated Source Code for MAS Components with Meduse > Develop Annotated Source Code for MAS Components with Meduse > MAS Designer MMF Develop DOP Source Code for MAS Components with Meduse > Develop DOP Source Code for MAS Components with Meduse > MAS Designer MMF Develop FOP Source Code for MAS Components with Meduse > Develop Source Code for MAS-PL Components > MAS Designer MMF Domain Scope with Synthesis > Gather Requirements with Synthesis > MAS Designer MMF Gather Requirement with Tropos > Gather MAS-PL Requirement with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Generate MAS Final Product > Generate MAS Final Product > MAS Designer MMF Identify Additional Requirement with Tropos > Identify Additional Requirement with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Identify Initial Requirement with Tropos > Identify Requirement with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Identify SPL Requirement with Synthesis > Identify Domain Requirement with Synthesis > MAS Designer MMF Implement agent with Tropos > Implement Agent with Tropos > MAS Designer MMF Map Commonalaty&Variability to Domain Design Artifacts with Meduse > Map Comm&Variability to Design Artifacts > MAS Designer MMF Map Commonalaty&Variability to Domain Implementation Artifacts with Meduse > Map Comm&Variability to Impl. Artifacts > MAS Designer MMF Refine SPL Commonalities and Variabilities with Meduse > Refine Commonalities and Variabilities > MAS Designer MMF Select Existing SPL Reusable Implementation Artifacts with Meduse > Select existing reusable Implementation Artifacts > MAS Designer MMF Test SPL MAS Components with Meduse > Test MAS-PL components > MAS Designer PD_GaiaFMAnalysis > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Analysis Phase > Define MAS-PL Feature Model > MAS Designer PD_OrgDesign > Domain Design Phase > Design Agent with Gaia > MAS Designer PD_TroposDMAnalysis > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Analysis Phase > Define MAS-PL Decision Model > MAS Designer Tropos > Architectural Design Phase > Analyze Architectural Style > MAS Designer Tropos > Architectural Design Phase > Analyze Agent > MAS Designer Tropos > Detailed Design Phase > Design Agent > MAS Designer Tropos > Implementation Phase > Implement Agent > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Analysis Phase > Detail Requirements with Tropos > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Design Phase > Analyze Architectural Style with Tropos > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Design Phase > Analyze Agent with Tropos > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Design Phase > Design Agent with Tropos > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Design Phase > Refine Commonalities and Variabilities > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Design Phase > Map Features to Domain Design Artifacts > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Implementation Phase > Develop Source Code for MAS-PL Components > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Implementation Phase > Test MAS-PL components > MAS Designer Tropos PL Variant 2 > Domain Engineering Iteration 1..n > Domain Implementation Phase > Map Features to Domain Implementation Artifacts > MAS Designer xxxMMF_Gather SPL Final Product Requirement with Tropos > Gather Final Product Requirement with Tropos > MAS Designer xxxMMF Map Feature Model to Domain Analysis Artifacts > Map Feature Model to Analysis Artifacts > MAS Designer xxxxxMMF Define Decision Model with Synthesis > Define MAS-PL Decision Model > MAS Designer

Main Description

The person in this role leads or coordinates the technical design of the system and has overall responsibility for facilitating the major technical decisions expressed as software architecture. This typically includes identifying and documenting the architecturally significant aspects of the system as views that describe requirements, design, implementation, and deployment.

This role is also responsible for providing the rationale for these decisions, balancing the concerns of the various stakeholders, reducing technical risks, and ensuring that decisions are effectively communicated, validated, and followed.

This role works closely with project managers in staffing and planning the project, because it is recommended that the team be organized around the architecture.

This role also works closely with analysts and developers to make sure that the architecturally significant requirements are assigned to the proper components of the system.

Staffing

Skills

Architects must be well-rounded people with maturity, vision, and a depth of experience that allows for grasping issues quickly and making educated, critical judgments in the absence of complete information. Specifically, the person must possess this combination of qualifications:

Experience in both problem and software engineering domains, with evidence of a thorough understanding of the requirements to solve the problem and active participation in software development. If there is a team, this experience can be represented by different team members, but at least one person must be able to describe the overall vision for the project.
Leadership ability to motivate and maintain momentum for the technical effort across the various teams and to make critical decisions under pressure, plus make those decisions stick. To be effective, this role must have the authority to make technical decisions. This role cannot lead by decree, but only by the consent of the rest of the project team. To be effective, this person must earn the respect of the team members, project managers, the customer, and the user community, as well as the management team.
Excellent communication skills to earn trust, persuade, motivate, and mentor. The person in this role must have good communication skills, both verbally and in writing.
Critical review skills to make sure that the requirements to be built are clear and consistent and to make sure that the developed system adheres to the architecture.
Goal-oriented and proactive orientation with a relentless focus on results. This person is the technical driving force behind the project, not a visionary or dreamer. The career of a successful architect is a long series of sub-optimal decisions made in uncertainty and under pressure. Only those who can focus on doing what needs to be done will be successful.

From an expertise standpoint, the Architect also needs to show both design and implementation abilities. However, from the design perspective, the effective Architect typically exhibits these traits:

Tends to be a generalist, rather than a specialist, who knows many technologies at a high level rather than a few technologies at the detailed level
Makes the broader technical decisions, thereby demonstrating broad knowledge and experience, as well as communication and leadership skills

Assignment Approaches

The person in this role should be engaged in the project from start to finish.

For smaller projects, a single person can act as both Architect and project manager. However, it is better to have these roles performed by different people to ensure that the pressures of one role does not cause neglect of the other role. The Architect and Project Manager must work together closely.

For systems of scale, it is a common best practice to have an architecture board that is populated by the architects of each system, plus one or two chief architects. In such cases, the members of the architecture board collectively play the role of the Architect.