In this talk I made an effort to link together sustainability, architecture design decision, and group decision making. Take a look and contact me for questions.

1. Collaborative aspects of Decision
Making and its impact on
Sustainability
@SAGRA 2017
Henry Muccini
DISIM Department
University of L’ Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy
henry.muccini@univaq.it - @muccinihenry
Slides available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/henry.muccini/

2. Henry Muccini – SAGRA 2017
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Sustainability
• “capacity to endure” [1] and
• “preserve the function of a system
over an extended period of time.” [2]
[1] Sustainability: Can our society endure?
http://www.sustainability.com/sustainability
[2] Hilty, L.M., Arnfalk, P., Erdmann, L., Goodman, J., Lehmann, M., and Wäger,
P.A. The relevance of information and communication technologies for
environmental sustainability: A prospective simulation study. Environmental
Modelling & Software 21, 11 (Nov. 2006) 1618–1629.
Maintaining and preserving
(certain properties/abilities)
in the long-term…

3. Henry Muccini – SAGRA 2017
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Sustainability – four dimensions
Patricia Lago, Sedef Akinli Koçak, Ivica Crnkovic, Birgit Penzenstadler: Framing sustainability as a property of software
quality. Commun. ACM 58(10): 70-78 (2015)

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Focus of this talk
cost-effective longevity and endurance
maintained and evolved
collaborative and intercultural aspects
requirements traceability
economics

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6. Architecture Design
Decision

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Software Architecture
perspectives
4 (main) perspectives:
 A set of components and connectors
communicating through interfaces (since ‘90s)
 Written according to architectural styles
(since mid ‘90s)
 Focus on set of views and viewpoints (since ‘00)
 A set of architecture design decisions (since ‘05)

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From C&C to Today
Constraints on
topology,
behaviour,
communication

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Architecture Design Decisions
Architecting is the process of creating software
architecture knowledge and artifacts for engineering
software systems
A Software Architecture consists of
–A blueprint for the chosen solution (product)
–A set of design decisions (co-product)

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Taking decisions
Design
problem Problem
space
sub-
problem
(or issue)
sub-
problem
(or issue)
Design
option
Design
option
Design
option
Design
option
Solution
space
Alternative
solutions
Alternative
solutions
Decision =
best option
Decision =
best option
Best, with
respect to
some criteria

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From ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011

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ADD challenges
Dependencies among decisions
Granularity of design decisions
Collaborative ADD
Evolving ADD

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Note
A different set of ADD brings potentially
very different Architectures

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15. Group Decision Making

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Architecting in a picture
ADD

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Collaborative Decision Making
ADD
ADD
ADD
ADD
GDM

18. Henry Muccini – SAGRA 2017
18Three decades of research on group decision
making in the business domain
Group Decision
Making
GDM has been studied from multiple perspectives that
includes Psychology, Organizational Behavior, Operations
Research and Economics
Processes
and Methods
Group
Characteristics:
size, diversity,
roles, cohesion
Information
Exchange
Issues:
Groupthink,
Group Shift
Process
Enhancement
Conflict
Resolution
GDM

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GDM methods
• The participants freely propose a list of alternatives. Then,
brainstorm over them to arrive at a final decision. A leader
moderates. (supports the generation of ideas)
Brainstorming
• Alternatives are provided by the participants, and then
voted.Voting
• Experts answer questionnaires in a distributed and anonymous way.
A facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’
forecasts (after each round). (avoids influence between experts)
Delphi
Consensus: several alternatives are listed, an effort is made to achieve
maximum level of consensus. Selection: once there is high level of
agreement among participants selected and the decision is made the
best alternative are selected.
Consensus-
Selection
• The problem is modelled as goals, alternatives and criteria.
Participants are normally experts who do a pairwise comparison of
alternatives based on certain criteria. The results are then
synthesized to make the final decision
AHP

21. GDM: example

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https://goo.gl/6CHi4e

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Example of a different GDM
process
List Alternatives: Given a list of design issues, each member writes down his or her
choice of alternatives individually (without discussion)
Once everyone has individually written down the choices, each one reads out
his/her alternative solutions
These alternative solutions are noted down in the shared excel QOC sheet and the
names of person proposing the alternative is also written against each alternative
Discuss and Evaluate: The group discussion on alternative starts. Each design issue
is taken and each alternative for a specific design issue is evaluated against the
criteria relevant to that issue.
Make sure every member participates in this discussion regarding the alternatives.
The evaluation details are noted in the QOC sheet
Consensus: After discussing on the design issues, the group must now proceed
closer to making final decisions.
– During the discussion for each issue, there may one alternative solution that emerges as
winner. In that case, it is chosen
– Else, top 2 alternatives are listed. One more round of discussion may happen on pros and
cons of each alternative and 1 may be chosen..
If this too leads to tie, members may vote for one of these alternatives. The
alternative with most votes is chosen

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Notes

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Architecture GDM in practice
 5-10 people
involved in
decision
making
 21 different
macro-roles
represented
 80%-20%
distributed-
colocated
V. Smrithi Rekha, Henry Muccini: A Study on Group Decision-Making in Software Architecture. WICSA
2014: 185-194
how practitioners arrive at a
consensus
 Drivers: time, cost and quality
 Decision pattern: group
discussion ->
if no agreement, a leader/small
group decides (35%)

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GDM Factors
Design Issue 1:
how many
gateways shall be
used to collect
sensored data in
a building?
Single
Gateway
1 gateway
per floor
1 Gateway
per
apartment
Cost
Reliability
Availability
Design
alternatives
CriteriaDesign
issue
Stakeholders’ concerns
Stakeholders’ reputation
Stakeholders’ roles
Consensus Mechanisms
Social links
Decision Patterns
GDM

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Recap
A different set of ADD brings
potentially very different Architectures
Collaboration adds social and
organizational aspects into the
group decision making process

29. Impact (Considerations) on
GDM and Sustainability

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Let us go back to the initial
illustrations...
What do they
have in
common?

31. Consideration 1: Decision making
at the time of Sustainability

32. Provides methods to support
multi-stakeholders, with
different concerns and roles,
to take design decisions
collaboratively
Requires multi-stakeholders,
with different sustainability-
specific concerns, to take
decisions

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Tech
concerns
Software
Architecture
Description
Tech
Concerns Economic
Concerns
Economic
Concerns
Env
concerns
Env
concerns
Social
concerns

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Consideration 1
Trade-offs between all the four
dimensions of Sustainability
 Competing forces
 E.g. Environmental vs Economics
 Fundamental to capture direct
vs indirect dependecies among
solutions
 Multi-objective function
 Different stakeholders and glossaries

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Examples
Env
concerns
Economic
Concerns
Economic
Concerns
Social
concerns

36. Consideration 2: Explicit handling
of Sustainability-related properties

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Explicit handling of sustainability
1. Sustainability as a Quality
Requirement
2. Sustainability as a tactic
3. Sustainability as a new Architecture
Framework

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Sustainability as a new
requirement category
 Efficiently incorporates environmentally friendly materials.
 Minimal consumption of water energy, resources in all stages of
production till end-of-life
 Causes minimal emissions in gas, liquid and solid form during
both manufacturing and it’s use
 Has a long life is repairable and is efficient in use for all energy,
consumables and emissions
 Unlike traditional products with minimal life, these products can
be upgraded to extend their life
 At the end of life these products can be reused and the
materials can be separated and recycled.
 These products are in harmony with people and nature, they
consider their well-being In the process of Design and
manufacture both commercial and sustainability have to be
considered.
https://www.slideshare.net/vasudhanair/sustainability-requirements-3

39. Henry Muccini – SAGRA 2017
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Sustainability as a Quality Property
Patricia Lago, Sedef Akinli Koçak, Ivica Crnkovic, Birgit Penzenstadler: Framing
sustainability as a property of software quality. Commun. ACM 58(10): 70-78 (2015)

40. Henry Muccini – SAGRA 2017
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Sustainability as a new Architecture
Framework
Software
VP
Hardware
VP
Physical Space
VP
HWML SPML
Software
Architect
Developer
System
Integrators
System
Engineer
Space coverage
Data exchange
Networking and
communication
Energy
Consumption
Viewpoints System Concerns
Stakeholders
The Modeling
Languages
DSLDSL DSLDSL
SAML
DSLDSL
Smart Building / Physical
Space modelers
(Sensor network
& IoT ) experts
MAPML DEPML

41. Consideration 3: Reqs traceability

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Challenge
Building
traceability links
among possibly
very different
artifacts

43. Henry Muccini @ ICSA2017
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Need of an approach that
1) supports the creation of traceability links to
arbitrary artifacts.
2) supports the definition of custom traceability
link types for projects.
3) supports the visualization of artifacts connected
by traceability links through matrix or graph view.

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45. Consideration 4: Social aspect of
Sustainablity and Organizational
Social Structure

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Social Sustainability
“Social sustainability aims at preserving
the societal communities in their
solidarity and services.”[Manifesto]
[Manifesto] The Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainability Design.
http://sustainabilitydesign.org/karlskrona-manifesto/

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On the Social Dimensions of
Architectural Decisions
Henry Muccini, Damian Andrew Tamburri, V. Smrithi Rekha:
On the Social Dimensions of Architectural Decisions. ECSA 2015: 137-145
Architecture Design Decisions
Group Decision
Making
Organizational
Social
Structure
OSS= “the graph of interactions, patterned relations and
arrangements emerging between individuals in the same endeavor”...

48. Collaborative aspects of Decision
Making and its impact on
Sustainability
@SAGRA 2017
Henry Muccini
DISIM Department
University of L’ Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy
henry.muccini@univaq.it - @muccinihenry
Slides available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/henry.muccini/