How important is solution architecture for product development?

Having a good solution architecture and an experienced solution architect ensures the teams will develop the product on time, under the budget, and with features that solve the problems, that it is supposed to solve, writes Ashish Mittal, Director of Yugasa Software Labs Pvt Ltd.

In a popular book named Maximizing the ROI from IT investments, Thomas Pisello and Paul Strassmann state that about one-third of all custom software developments fail. Half of them get delayed, exceed budget, or have lesser functionality. From the total, only one-sixth of the projects are actually delivered on time, within budget range and match the full specifications. This has led to the scenario favorable for the solution architects, who use their experience and understanding of the specific field and provide proper solutions so that the projects stay right on the track. If you are planning to start a project, you should start by developing a solution architecture document for it.

A solution architect is a person who mixes roles, processes, and documentation to tackle specific issues and requirements on the design of certain information systems or applications. It is a document that explains the structure of a solution to any problem(s). Solution architects depend on various solution guidelines which basically define and specify—the business context, the needed data and the generated data during product development, the variety of technology platform components that are needed, types of required application components and needed resources to reach the non-functional but much-needed requirements such as reliability, throughput, reliability, availability, security, speed, and scalability, etc.

A solution architect is quite possibly one of the most important customer-facing roles. To create any decent solution architect, the architect must be an efficient business analyst with a vast and thorough knowledge about the system architecture and project management. To simplify, a solution architect explains the basic structure, behavior, and various characteristics of a solution to its stakeholders. They lay down the specifications which define, delivers, manages, and operate the solution. Normally, there are several problems with a project and many solutions to each problem. Each of these solutions come with certain constraints. Solution architecture is mainly focused on finding the best possible solution or set of solutions and their components that are most beneficial to the project development.

Who is a solution architect?

A solution architect is a person who provides the proper direction to the project. He has the working knowledge of both business and technical aspects of the project he works on. He compares and contrasts the various tools and techniques and offer suggestions that best serve the project requirements. He understands the various constraints of the available solutions and chooses one which is best suited for the given project. He is head of developing the different views for the various stakeholders. He offers detailed component specifications and ensures the appropriate technical resources are available. He gives advice on the technical aspects of the system development and integrations and also makes sure that the instances have proper policies, standards, and practices.

How exactly does having the solution architecture help?

1. Solution architecture designed such that they meet the needs of all stakeholders.

Any product has various stakeholders. Along with that, there are in-house and business aspects of the development. Someone is needed to tell the non-technical members about all the development and processes. They are required to provide status updates at regular intervals. There is a constant talk between the stakeholders about costing and budgeting. This job is skillfully handled by a solution architect. He is the person who explains all the relevant details about a project into a language that both management and other stakeholders understand. They must be kept in the loop.

2. A solution architect’s role in customer-facing for the development of a product.

Solution architects help onboard new clients. He supports them the entire way during the project implementation. He creates processes and documentation for things such as configurations, customization processes, and functionalities. He allows for the self-learning of the clients and makes them comfortable in the process of database navigation configuration tools on client-specific code snippets. He is the person who puts effort into understanding the business, technology, and marketing goals of the clients. This helps the development process of the product. He can thus provide customers with tons of good technological offerings with the help of the developer team. He is responsible for product demonstrations.

3. A solution architect ensures that the product uses the most appropriate technology.

A good solution architect is aware of the in-depth knowledge of different tools and technologies. He looks for alternate architectural strategies involving them. Various strategies based on the usage of different platform choices, tools, and technologies used and the reusable code are compared and contrasted. These tools and technologies are well tested and studied to find out the best-suited one. Proofs of concept are made to test the costs and benefits of each strategy. Assessment of quality and product requirements is done and the most suitable strategy is chosen to start the development of the product. Concerns regarding the speed, security, and agility are also addressed in it. The solution architect validates the technologies to make sure they meet the business needs of the solution.

4. A solution architecture helps in the management of constraints.

A constraint is a restriction that defines the limitations of a thing. The major project constraints are a risk, scope, technology, cost, quality, schedule, and resources which are managed by the solution architecture. The project makes use of a set of technologies that suit the constituting modules properly. Part of the project documents the specific goals, deliverables, features, functions tasks, and deadlines. All of it comes with its constraints which a solution architect understands, compares, and then chooses the best-suited one from. Every project has a defined budget. And so, there are cost-related constraints. There are also constraints regarding the schedule where the start and end times of a task in a project’s critical path has limitations. The whole sequence of tasks in a project gets delayed if one of them is delayed. Managing resources means managing staffing, equipment, and other resources that are mandatory for the completion of the project. Any ongoing project needs a smart allocation of the resources to make sure of the management of constraints.

5. Solution architecture makes sure that the product meets the NFRs of product development.
To make your application useful, there are many Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) that must be met. Non-Functional Requirements are also called Q-O-S or technical requirements. The NFRs include things like security access rights, performance concerns, reliability, maintainability, scalability, availability requirements, usability, and other issues. There may be bounded NFRs, unbounded NFRs which can be tested and analyzed, negotiable NFRs, and testable NFRs. Some of them can be implemented all at once and some can be implemented step by step. Failing to meet these NFRs can result in the application failing the business, market, or internal user’s need.

Summing up: After going through all the points, you can see that solution architecture is the initial framework that gives you the proper guidelines for product development. You are required to manage the constraints well. Testing, experimenting, exploring, and implementing the proper tools, technology, and processes will make sure that your product has good quality. The effort in research you put in to make a good solution architecture document will lead the development team towards the right solution, which will be useful to everyone invested in the project.