DecDoc: A Tool for Documenting Design Decisions Collaboratively and Incrementally

Hesse, Tom-Michael; Kuehlwein, Arthur; Roehm, Tobias

doi:10.1109/march.2016.9

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The design objects and systems that are affected by a design decision are thus included explicitly in the documentation. The context will provide clarity on different project teams' involvement for a decision, guiding the communication and reflection between them [25].…”

Section: Whatmentioning

confidence: 99%

The documentation of design decisions in engineering projects: A study in infrastructure development

Kinneging¹,

Siebelink

Graaf

et al. 2021

IJISPM

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In most design projects, the documentation of design decisions is considered important. Among others, documentation of design decisions contributes to the traceability of decisions that shape a project’s development process, helps deal with changes in the project and prevents the recurrence of old discussions. Yet, little attention is given to documenting design decisions in the engineering literature. In this study, a theoretical framework for the key elements of this documentation process was developed. Four infrastructure projects were studied and compared to this framework by means of pattern matching. This method compares theoretical and empirical patterns and determines whether they match or do not match. The findings demonstrate that accessibility of documentation for all involved project parties and the division of documentation tasks are in accordance with the literature. However, the documentation of design decisions and their rationale is not done as completely as is recommended in theory. Literature states that the documentation of interrelations and context of decisions should be described thoroughly, but that is barely done in practice. In addition, the findings show that neither immediate documentation nor periodical monitoring of documentation is applied. Based on these findings, this research proposes a strategy for improving the documentation of design decisions.

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Section: Whatmentioning

confidence: 99%

The documentation of design decisions in engineering projects: A study in infrastructure development

Kinneging¹,

Siebelink

Graaf

et al. 2021

IJISPM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…System Tool [24], [48], [16], [36], [4], [50], [31], [39] 8 23.53% Design Complement Tool [22], [55], [49], [7], [5], [51], [52],…”

Section: Papers Count Percentagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Papers Count Percentage Source code [35], [26], [33], [22], [24] 5 14.71% Requirements [18], [42], [38] 3 8.82%…”

Section: Artifactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traceability of Architectural Design Decisions and Software Artifacts: A Systematic Mapping Study

Hyun,

Hurtado

2023

Foundations of Computing and Decision Sciences

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The definition of architecture is a crucial task in software development, where the architect is responsible for making the right decisions to meet specific functional and quality requirements. These architectural design decisions form the foundation that shapes the arrangement of elements within a system. Unfortunately, these decisions are often poorly documented, implicit in various artifacts, or inadequately updated, leading to negative consequences on the maintainability of a system and resulting in rework and cost overruns. The objective of this systematic mapping study is to comprehend the current state regarding approaches for traceability of architectural design decisions and how these decisions are linked with the different artifacts used in software development. To achieve this, an information extraction protocol is followed, utilizing databases with search strings, inclusion, and exclusion criteria. The findings demonstrate that this knowledge is highly relevant; however, it is rarely explicitly documented. As a result, most works propose diverse approaches to extract this knowledge from existing technical documentation, commonly used tools, and other sources of product and process information. In contrast, it is evident that there is no standard for documenting design decisions, leading each author to present a subjective version of what is important and where to trace these decisions. This suggests that there is still a significant amount of research to be conducted regarding the traceability of these architectural design decisions and their connection with software artifacts. Such research could lead to intriguing new proposals for investigation.

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Continuous Design Decision Support

Kleebaum

Konersmann

Langhammer

et al. 2019

Managed Software Evolution

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In this chapter, we elaborate on how design decisions are made, documented, and exploited during software evolution. We emphasise the importance of design decisions, in particular in the context of continuous software engineering. We detail the challenge of the intrusiveness of rational decision-making, documentation, and exploitation of design decisions and the challenge of ensuring consistency between design decisions and software artefacts. The main contributions of this chapter are three approaches to a continuous design decision support: First, we present an approach that supports developers in design decision-making using a catalogue of design patterns. Second, we present an approach to support the awareness for documented design decisions by integrating the decision documentation with the underlying source code. Third, we present how short-cycled practices in continuous software engineering can be used to support the documentation and exploitation of design decisions.

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DecDoc: A Tool for Documenting Design Decisions Collaboratively and Incrementally

Cited by 10 publications

References 38 publications

The documentation of design decisions in engineering projects: A study in infrastructure development

The documentation of design decisions in engineering projects: A study in infrastructure development

Traceability of Architectural Design Decisions and Software Artifacts: A Systematic Mapping Study

Continuous Design Decision Support

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