Maximizing value and eliminating flow barriers

Agile and Lean software development practices actively eliminate flow barriers such as phase-gated checks, handoffs, manual validations, deployments, and infrequent releases existing in traditional software development. Furthermore, agile software development practices need to consistently demonstrate the continuous, uninterrupted flow of values to rapidly respond to changing customer needs. As a key player in agile software delivery, solution architects ruthlessly focus on improving the pace at which value is delivered and substantially provide enhancing benefits to both customers and enterprises.

There are five areas where solution architects must spend their energy to maximize business value and faster flow. These are captured in the following diagram:

Figure 5.5 – Solution architect's key objectives

As we can see, solution architects maximize business value by quickly delivering the one fit for...