Exploring Coexistence of Software Architecture Development and Agility through a Multivocal Literature Review

Agile development methods aim to balance up-front and just-in-time work, prioritize adaptive and exploratory approaches, and spend time and effort on essential activities in a project's lifespan. One of the key strategies in agile development is to defer making decisions as late as possible. Software architecture development (SAD) requires creating high-level software infrastructure that reflects a solution for quality requirements such as reliability and maintainability. SAD requires performing up-front work and having established software requirements. Given these characteristics, Agile and SAD may be perceived as two conflicting worlds. In this study, we present the results of a Multivocal Literature Review (MLR) aimed at understanding the challenges of developing software architecture in agile software development projects and the solutions proposed for these challenges. The MLR included 13 grey literature and 40 formally published research sources. The challenges and solutions are discussed across eight categories.