Strategic Monoliths and Microservices: Driving Innovation Using Purposeful Architecture (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Vernon))

When the team has decided on modules first, and when deployment options start out as simple as possible, that approach puts them on solid ground to make decisions based on empirical information at the most responsible time.

Why do large systems disintegrate? The process seems to occur in three steps, the first two of which are controllable and the third of which is a direct result of our homomorphism. First, the realization by the initial designers that the system will be large, together with certain pressures in their organization, make irresistible the temptation to

Assertion: Those who want to build good software that innovates must get this communication–learning–innovation pathway right before trying anything else.

Spaghetti business always exists before software, and spaghetti code is the bane of a system’s existence. Ad hoc architecture, progressive distortion of the software model, wrongly chosen abstractions, seeking opportunities for code reuse before use is even achieved, and unskilled developers are some of the reasons that software complexity prevents

A business capability answers the “What?” question regarding the means by which the company will generate revenues. A substantive question with regard to a business capability is “How?” Impact Mapping, discussed in Chapter 2 in the section “Strategic Delivery on Purpose,” explains driving software deliverables starting with the question “Why?” By t

“Domain expert engagement is to architecture as end user engagement is to feature development. You should find that end users and domain experts are your most treasured contacts in Lean and Agile projects”

This is a good place to introduce the idea of using an engineering model approach to software development as opposed to the contractor model. First consider the typical contractor model. Under this model, whether used by employees or actual contractors, developers must be given accurate tasks to work on, and they must not fail in even small ways. T

Imitation is not a strategy. Differentiation is.

So you can’t go out and ask people, you know, what the next big thing is. There’s a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, “If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse.’” —Steve Jobs