Whitepaper on Software Architecture Education
Many organizations struggle to choose the most appropriate courses to advance their people. They struggle because, while it is relatively easy to describe their desired end state, the path to get to it is unclear.
Software architecture education is particularly tricky. If you take a class on Java or Struts, you do so because you do not yet know that language or framework. But everyone has some ability to design programs already, so it is not clear what benefit will come from a general class on architecture and design. If you are considering an architecture class, you suspect that your team would benefit from software architecture and design education, but are having a hard time putting your finger on exactly what is missing. As a consequence, it’s hard to be sure if any particular course is what the team needs.
This whitepaper describes a structured approach to thinking about your architecture and design needs. This approach, in brief, consists of the following activities:
- Grouping people into personas
- Identifying problems and connect them to personas
- Connecting education offerings to problems
- Evaluating or developing courses
At the end of this, you should have a better idea of your organization’s needs and therefore be in a good position to decide what kind of education options will be most helpful.
This whitepaper makes three contributions. First, the overall structured approach that aids decision making. Second, the use of personas instead of the obvious choice, job titles/roles. And third, the sets of prototypical personas, problems, and education offerings.
