Making architecture reviews work in the real world

This article explores the nontechnical aspects of formal architecture reviews-social, psychological, and managerial. Architecture reviews differ from other technical reviews because of their close relationship to a system's business goals, so they need to be approached differently. The authors draw lessons from their experiences in reviewing and evaluating software and system architectures in a wide variety of application domains. They discuss the issues architects face when running such reviews, common pitfalls to avoid, and ways of increasing an organization's chances of a successful review.