Risks and Risk Management in Software Architecture Evolution: An Industrial Survey

The effort that has been made to study risk management in the context of software architecture and its evolution, has so far focused on output from structured evaluations. However, earlier research shows that formal, structured evaluation is not commonly used in industry. We have performed a survey among software architects, in order to capture a more complete picture of the risk and management issues in software architecture evolution. Our survey is specifically about their current knowledge of actual challenges they have anticipated and experienced, as well as strategies they have employed in response. We received completely filled questionnaires from 82 respondents out of a total distribution of 511 architects from the software industry in Norway. While many of the risks we have identified can be aligned with results from earlier studies, we have also identified several risks which appear not to fit these risk categories. Additionally, we found a direct link to business risks, as well as a relatively low level of awareness that lack of software architecture evaluation represents a potential risk.