10.1. Introduction and Goals

Arc42 Information

Describes the relevant requirements and the driving forces that software architects and development team must consider. These include

• underlying business goals,

• essential features,

• essential functional requirements,

• quality goals for the architecture and

• relevant stakeholders and their expectations

10.1.1. Requirements Overview

Arc42 Information

Contents

Short description of the functional requirements, driving forces, extract (or abstract) of requirements. Link to (hopefully existing) requirements documents (with version number and information where to find it).

Motivation

From the point of view of the end users a system is created or modified to improve support of a business activity and/or improve the quality.

Form

Short textual description, probably in tabular use-case format. If requirements documents exist this overview should refer to these documents.

Keep these excerpts as short as possible. Balance readability of this document with potential redundancy w.r.t to requirements documents.

See Introduction and Goals in the arc42 documentation.

10.1.2. Quality Goals

Arc42 Information

Contents

The top three (max five) quality goals for the architecture whose fulfillment is of highest importance to the major stakeholders. We really mean quality goals for the architecture. Don’t confuse them with project goals. They are not necessarily identical.

Consider this overview of potential topics (based upon the ISO 25010 standard):

Motivation

You should know the quality goals of your most important stakeholders, since they will influence fundamental architectural decisions. Make sure to be very concrete about these qualities, avoid buzzwords. If you as an architect do not know how the quality of your work will be judged…

Form

A table with quality goals and concrete scenarios, ordered by priorities

Note

Quality requirements are discussed in more detail in the chapter on Quality Requirements.

10.1.3. Stakeholders

Arc42 Information

Contents

Explicit overview of stakeholders of the system, i.e. all person, roles or organizations that

• should know the architecture

• have to be convinced of the architecture

• have to work with the architecture or with code

• need the documentation of the architecture for their work

• have to come up with decisions about the system or its development

Motivation

You should know all parties involved in development of the system or affected by the system. Otherwise, you may get nasty surprises later in the development process. These stakeholders determine the extent and the level of detail of your work and its results.

Form

Table with role names, person names, and their expectations with respect to the architecture and its documentation.

Role/Name	Contact	Expectations
Role-1	Contact-1	Expectation-1
Role-2	Contact-2	Expectation-2

!!! note See System Scope and Context for a