Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions [Paperback]

Luke Hohmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0201775948 | ISBN-13: 978-0201775945 | Edition: 1

At last, a book that provides the software engineering community with a clearer understanding of the business value of software architecture. There are currently a significant number of books on creating, documenting, and implementing software architecture, but precious few resources have addressed how to build a software architecture that aligns with a customer's overall business goals. In this new book, Luke Hohmann borrows from his extensive experience managing successful enterprise software projects to provide practical wisdom on creating and sustaining winning software solutions. This book helps technologists grasp the business ramifications of their decisions, and provides business-oriented software professionals (e.g. sales people and marketers) with better knowledge of how robust software can be built and maintained.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Beyond Software Architecture "Luke Hohmann is that rare software technologist who views software development from the viewpoint of the end user. He passionately believes that one hour spent with an end user is worth many hours making software architectural choices or days documenting perceived user requirements. Most of what is written about software development focuses on methods used to design and develop robust software. Luke's latest effort, Beyond Software Architecture, illuminates the more mundane aspects of creating true business solutions by supporting the user throughout the lifecycle of the software product. By concerning himself with creating business value, Luke tightens the connection between a software application and the business function it performs." Bruce Bourbon General Partner, Telos Venture Partners ~"There are two kinds of people that read the Dilbert comic strip: folks that take a moment to marvel at how accurately it reflects life at their company before moving on to the next comic strip, and folks that think Dilbert is an amusing reminder that high tech companies can and should be better than Dilbert's world. Anyone in the first group should stick to reading comics. This book is for people in the latter group." - Tony Navarrete Vice President, Diamondhead Ventures ~"Luke brings a proven methodology to the challenge of software development. In Beyond Software Architecture, Luke provides practical and proven techniques that all development executives can employ to improve the productivity of their software organization." - G. Bradford Solso CEO, Taviz Technology ~"Beyond Software Architecture is the first book I have read which contains an insider's perspective of both the business and technical facets of software architecture. This is a great book to get marketers and software managers on the same page!" Damon Schechter CEO, LOC Global author of Delivering the Goods ~"There are books on technical architecture and books on product marketing, but few, if any, on how architecture and marketing information must be integrated for world class product development. Beyond Software Architecture provides this valuable bridge between technology and marketing it explains how to deliver quality products that are profitable in the marketplace." Jim Highsmith Director, Cutter Consortium author of Adaptive Software Development ~"Product development managers, marketing managers, architects, and technical leads from all functions should read this book. You'll see a pragmatic view of how to define and use a product architecture throughout a project's lifecycle and a product's lifetime." Johanna Rothman Rothman Consulting Group, Inc. ~"Luke Hohmann has captured the essence of product creation in his latest book. He cleverly discusses the need for both the marketing and engineering roles in product creation and ties the two together building a good foundation for understanding and executing successful product creation." Lee Sigler Principal, 360 Market View, Inc. ~"Finally a book that deals with those often ignored but critical operational issues like licensing, deployment, installation, configuration and support. Beyond Software Architecture is the "What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School" book for anyone who develops software products or buys them." Mary Poppendieck Managing Director, Agile Alliance President, Poppendieck LLC ~"Luke Hohmann delivers a passionate, articulate wake-up call to software architects: it ain't just technical any more! Technical architectures have profound business ramifications, and ignoring the business ramifications of portability, usability, configuration, upgrade and release management, security, and other architectural choices can not only lead to project failures, but ultimately to nasty lawsuits from disappointed customers. Beyond Software Architecture is a must-read for successful software product managers!" Ed Yourdon Author of numerous books and articles on software development ~"Beyond Software Architecture is not just for software engineering professionals! Executives and product managers will find that the book provides the necessary background to make informed decisions about the software that their companies build. I have found that the book is a useful tool for building consensus between management and engineering, because it discusses business and customer-related issues without delving too deeply into implementation details." David Chaiken Vice President Systems Architecture AgileTV Corporation

From the Back Cover

Praise for Beyond Software Architecture

“Luke Hohmann is that rare software technologist who views software development from the viewpoint of the end user. He passionately believes that one hour spent with an end user is worth many hours making software architectural choices or days documenting perceived user requirements. Most of what is written about software development focuses on methods used to design and develop robust software. Luke’s latest effort, Beyond Software Architecture, illuminates the more mundane aspects of creating true business solutions by supporting the user throughout the lifecycle of the software product. By concerning himself with creating business value, Luke tightens the connection between a software application and the business function it performs.”

         —Bruce Bourbon
             General Partner, Telos Venture Partners

“There are two kinds of people that read the Dilbert comic strip: folks that take a moment to marvel at how accurately it reflects life at their company before moving on to the next comic strip, and folks that think Dilbert is an amusing reminder that high tech companies can and should be better than Dilbert’s world. Anyone in the first group should stick to reading comics. This book is for people in the latter group.”

         —Tony Navarrete
             Vice President, Diamondhead Ventures

“Luke brings a proven methodology to the challenge of software development. In Beyond Software Architecture, Luke provides practical and proven techniques that all development executives can employ to improve the productivity of their software organization.”

         —G. Bradford Solso
             CEO, Taviz Technology

“Beyond Software Architecture is the first book I have read which contains an insider’s perspective of both the business and technical facets of software architecture. This is a great book to get marketers and software managers on the same page!”

         —Damon Schechter
             CEO, LOC Global
             author of Delivering the Goods

“There are books on technical architecture and books on product marketing, but few, if any, on how architecture and marketing information must be integrated for world class product development. Beyond Software Architecture provides this valuable bridge between technology and marketing—it explains how to deliver quality products that are profitable in the marketplace.”

         —Jim Highsmith
             Director, Cutter Consortium
             author of Adaptive Software Development

“Product development managers, marketing managers, architects, and technical leads from all functions should read this book. You’ll see a pragmatic view of how to define and use a product architecture throughout a project’s lifecycle and a product's lifetime.”

         —Johanna Rothman
             Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.

“Luke Hohmann has captured the essence of product creation in his latest book. He cleverly discusses the need for both the marketing and engineering roles in product creation and ties the two together building a good foundation for understanding and executing successful product creation.”

         —Lee Sigler
             Principal, 360 Market View, Inc.

“Finally a book that deals with those often ignored but critical operational issues like licensing, deployment, installation, configuration and support. Beyond Software Architecture is the “What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School” book for anyone who develops software products—or buys them.”

         —Mary Poppendieck
             Managing Director, Agile Alliance
             President, Poppendieck LLC

“Luke Hohmann delivers a passionate, articulate wake-up call to software architects: it ain’t just technical any more! Technical architectures have profound business ramifications, and ignoring the business ramifications of portability, usability, configuration, upgrade and release management, security, and other architectural choices can not only lead to project failures, but ultimately to nasty lawsuits from disappointed customers. Beyond Software Architecture is a must-read for successful software product managers!”

         —Ed Yourdon
             Author of numerous books and articles on software development

“Beyond Software Architecture is not just for software engineering professionals! Executives and product managers will find that the book provides the necessary background to make informed decisions about the software that their companies build. I have found that the book is a useful tool for building consensus between management and engineering, because it discusses business and customer-related issues without delving too deeply into implementation details.”

         —David Chaiken
             Vice President, Systems Architecture
             AgileTV Corporation

“Product marketing influences product architecture. This shouldn’t be a surprise, yet most texts on software architecture are silent on this fact. This may be because we lack the language for distinguishing between the technical aspects of an architecture and the marketing aspects. Beyond Software Architecture provides the language to draw this important distinction, and provides strategies for overall architectural success.”

         —Dave W. Smith

“Beyond Software Architecture, as the title implies, successfully addresses the often neglected aspects of developing total solutions. Hohmann demonstrates both passion and depth for the broad set of topics discussed.”

         —Craig Priess
             Director Product Management, Resonant Software

“Looking through my technical library, it’s apparent that many books are obsolete, casualties of technical innovation and change. There are a few, however, that remain and continue to be relevant. Adding Luke Hohmann’s new book, Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions expands that selection and fills an important gap. It is the first book that I recall presenting a holistic approach to software creation. Going beyond the technical aspects by weaving together and linking critical business and marketing development in such a way to elevate and show how both technical and marketing processes must coalesce to create a winning solution. The topic's importance extends beyond programmers, designers and other technical staff, just as does its content. For marketing professionals, it shows how their decisions and strategies can impact technical decisions. For consumers, it can give them insight on the best ways to work with software manufacturers. For the software entrepreneur, it offers a plan for creating a successful venture. The content, at just the right amount of detail, is presented in easy-to-understand language and in such a way that the information is easy to retain and apply. The topics are timeless. The book will be relevant for a long time.”

         —Clay Miller

“I highly recommend this book. As a former software company CEO and founder I have worked with many software engineers and had a number of VPs of engineering report to me. Luke was and is one of the best. He is not only a great engineer, but has a keen grasp of the strategic business issues that must drive good code and architectural decisions. I consider Beyond Software Architecture required reading for anyone building software systems.”

         —Kevin Rivette
             Executive Advisor, BCG Consulting
             author of Rembrandts In The Attic

“Perhaps you’ve met, or worked with, or heard speak at events, or read the writings of someone who expects reverence because he commands academic knowledge of the latest software patterns, technologies, or development processes and tools. So what, you say. Suppose you take such knowledge for granted. Suppose that knowledge ...

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (February 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201775948
• ISBN-13: 978-0201775945
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Luke Hohmann is the founder and CEO of Enthiosys, Inc., a Silicon Valley-
based software product strategy and management consulting firm. Luke graduated magna cum laude with a B.S.E. in computer engineering and an M.S.E in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. While at Michigan he studied cognitive psychology and organizational
behavior in addition to data structures and artificial intelligence. He is a former National Junior Pairs Figure Skating Champion and American College of Sports Medicine certified aerobics instructor. He is a member of the PDMA, ACM, and IEEE.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Depicts the Development Process in its fullness, December 8, 2003

By 

ART SEDIGHI (Old Bethpage, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions (Paperback)

There must be hundreds of books on the software developmental process, but I have yet to see a book that covers the business, technical marketing, sales cycle, deployment cycle, release cycle, licensing, installation, upgrade cycle, and everything in the middle all in one compact book. This book TRULY covers the life of a software application and everyone involved in it.

For us techies, this book starts with what we are familiar with: "Why software architecture matters?" The author starts with a general overview of the topic, but it goes much further into the non-technical details software architecture, such as the Social Structure aspect:

"A good architecture works for the team that created it. It leverages strengths and can, at times, minimize their weaknesses. ... Once created, the architecture in turn exhibits a strong influence on the team. No matter what language you've chosen, you have to mold the development team around it because it affects such as things as your hiring and training policies."

New comers to the architect world don't really think about such aspects, or at least it's not really high on priority on many people's lists. The author puts such things right next to profitability, stability of the architecture, and defining the technical boundaries. Granted that Social Structure aspect of the architecture is as important as the others, you can't really find many books out there that treat it as such. Personal experience teaches us that, but there are cases, many cases, that one doesn't have the luxury of "trial and error". The author takes great pride in his experience and has written this book like a personal assistance to a newbie to the job, and to the expert architect with topics such as branding issues, licensing affects on the overall architecture and more...

Tarchitecture and Markitecture are two words/concepts that are used frequently throughout this book. The author starts with the inception of software applications and explains the important rule that Market Architecture (Markitecture) and Product Management have in the overall picture of a software lifecycle. Why Business plan is important and how it should be written, how to release version 1.0 and subsequent versions, how customer input and interaction with the markitects play the most important rule in the subsequent releases of your software, and other such important questions are covered in chapters 2 and 3.
The chapter Software License and Licensing models is probably one of the most valuable chapter (chapter 4) in the entire book. The author describes the concept of licensing and how it fits into the overall architecture and how it affects the architecture very elegantly. Various licensing models and their pros and cons are described:
· Time based
· Transaction based
· OEM bases
· Metering style
· Hardware based
· Services based
· Revenue Obtained/Costs saved.
The author explains why it is important to select the right licensing model, and how and why it could have a negative effect on your architecture if the wrong one is chosen. Various options for choosing a model are then explained such as the Honor System, the homegrown license managers, and the third party tools available.

Another important aspect of software architecture - the-after-development-has-been-done-now-what aspect, is covered throughout the rest of the book. Deployment, installation, configuration and upgrades are the key topics. Other topics such as extensions to the current architecture, logging and branding are also covered in detail.
The chapter on installation is another well-covered chapter that talks about a topic not covered at all or well in other books out there. Various deployment architectures are covered; Customer site installation, ASP, Managed Service Provider, and Web services models make up the topics for this chapter. This chapter, just like all the other chapters, relates the topic at hand to the overall system architecture, and why and how it can have an effect on the overall architecture of the system.

Throughout the book, one theme screams out to the reader: "How every decision an architect makes affects the rest of the software life cycle, and what the architects need to think about and consider before coming up with their design?" The cycle - software life cycle, and how it is affected by the end user/customer, why it's the job of the market architects and business managers to gather the key points from their customers, what are some of the concerns that are common with any architecture (deployment issues, upgrade concerns, installation difficulties, logging and error reporting, security concerns), and tone of the most important aspect of all: Social aspects and how they have an important affect on the tarchitects, markitects and the overall application. I think the author says it best in the preface of the book:

"You need to move beyond software architecture and move toward understanding and embracing the business issues that must be resolved in order to create a winning solution"

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very unique, yet not gripping, January 23, 2006

By 

Thomas Beck "www.beckshome.com" (Mechanicsburg, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions (Paperback)

One of the first things authors are asked by their agents, editors, or prospective publishers is to present an analysis of the other books in the genre that cover the same material as their books. Here, Luke must have had it very easy. He addresses a truly unique market niche (the interaction between technical architecture and marketing) in a way that really no one has done before or attempted to do since.

A book that handles both market segmentation and software product management in 300 odd pages is going to cover a whole lot of real estate and risks spreading the information pretty thin. Things important to folks in product management are not always the same things that are interesting to marketers. This facet of writing a book, target audience identification, is also frequently the subject of discussion with editors and publishes. Not having a clear target audience is where this book comes up a bit short.

Luke attempts to address such a breadth of software product concerns that it's hard for any one target group (technical architects or marketers) to get really interested. Although this book might be good for an entrepreneur or someone new to the field of software product management, it is, at best, a catalog of knowledge for tarchitects and marchitects and is unlikely to include anything that they haven't stumbled across in the field. A number of my colleagues have agreed with my final assessment that this is an easy book to peruse and become familiar with, yet a tough book to dive into and love.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars AND?, August 13, 2005

By 

Steven W. Spadt (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions (Paperback)

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems that while this book might provide a nice skeleton for managers straddling the line between development (techitecture) and business strategy (marketecture), the meat is simply not present. So many opportunities for REAL examples went either unaddressed completely, or worse, were answered with meaningless little 2-paragraph sidebars filled with sentences like, "then we sat down to talk about things and we decided to approach things from a different angle, blah, blah, blah." Thanks. I can't say this book was a complete waste of time but it certainly wasn't the best use of my time, either, sadly. And the coining of these ridiculous terms like "techitecture" were truly hard to take.