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Architecture Characteristics Extraction Process

3 min readStatus:Seedling

Core Idea

The architecture characteristics extraction process is a systematic approach for discovering both explicit and implicit architectural requirements by analyzing domain concerns, stakeholder requirements, and business context to ensure the architecture addresses actual needs rather than assumed ones.

The Extraction Process

Architecture characteristics extraction is the disciplined practice of identifying which non-functional requirements (the “-ilities”) matter most:

  • Examines both stated requirements and unstated domain assumptions
  • Prevents the common failure mode where architects design for characteristics that don’t align with actual business priorities
  • Prevents missing critical implicit requirements that stakeholders assume are obvious

The extraction process operates on two parallel tracks:

First: Explicit characteristics emerge from direct stakeholder statements and documented requirements:

  • When a stakeholder says “the system must handle 10,000 concurrent users,” they’re explicitly requesting scalability
  • When they state “downtime costs $50,000 per minute,” they’re demanding high availability
  • These explicit characteristics require careful listening and translation from business language to architectural vocabulary

Second: Implicit characteristics derive from domain knowledge and business context:

  • Different business domains carry inherent architectural requirements that stakeholders may not articulate
  • Healthcare systems almost universally require security, reliability, and auditability due to regulatory constraints and patient safety concerns
  • E-commerce platforms inherently need performance, availability, and data integrity because revenue depends on transaction completion
  • Financial systems demand security, compliance, and disaster recovery as table stakes for operating in the industry

The extraction process combines requirements document analysis, stakeholder interviews, and domain expertise:

  • Architects must ask probing questions:
    • “What does this business do?”
    • “What are the consequences of system failure?”
    • “What regulatory constraints apply?”
    • “How does the business make money, and how does the system support that?”
  • These questions reveal characteristics that weren’t explicitly stated but are nonetheless critical to success

Why This Matters

Incomplete or misidentified characteristics lead to architectures that fail to meet actual business needs:

  • A system optimized for extreme scalability when the business needs rapid feature delivery wastes engineering effort on the wrong problem
  • Conversely, missing an implicit security requirement in a healthcare system can result in regulatory violations and patient harm
  • The extraction process ensures architectural decisions align with real business drivers rather than assumptions or technical preferences

Sources

Note

This content was drafted with assistance from AI tools for research, organization, and initial content generation. All final content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by the author to ensure accuracy and alignment with the author’s intentions and perspective.

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