Towards a broader view on software architecture analysis of flexibility

Software architecture analysis helps us assess the quality of a software system at an early stage. We describe a case study of software architecture analysis that we have performed to assess the flexibility of a large administrative system. Our analysis was based on scenarios, representing possible changes to the requirements of the system and its environment. Assessing the effect of these scenarios provides insight into the flexibility of the system. One of the problems is to express the effect of a scenario in such a way that it provides insight into the complexity of the necessary changes. Part of our research is directed at developing an instrument for doing just that. This instrument is applied in the analysis presented.