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concept#Architecture#Governance#Integration#Software Engineering

ISO/IEC 42010

International standard for architecture description of systems and software defining views, viewpoints and stakeholder requirements.

ISO/IEC 42010 is an international standard for architecture description of systems and software.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Organizational
  • Architectural
  • Advanced

Technical context

Enterprise architecture repository (e.g., ArchiMate tools)Issue and requirements management systemsCI/CD and deployment pipelines for traceability

Principles & goals

Clear separation of viewpoints and viewsStakeholder-centered documentationTraceability from requirements to architecture decisions
Discovery
Enterprise, Domain

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Over-documentation without decision-making value
  • Incomplete views lead to wrong decisions
  • Lack of maintenance of architecture descriptions in operations
  • Focus on few relevant viewpoints per stakeholder group
  • Continuous maintenance and linkage to decisions
  • Automated checks for conformance and completeness

I/O & resources

  • Stakeholder list
  • Functional and non-functional requirements
  • System context and interface description
  • Architecture documentation (views, viewpoints)
  • Traceability matrices and decision records
  • Governance and conformance reports

Description

ISO/IEC 42010 is an international standard for architecture description of systems and software. It defines concepts such as stakeholders, viewpoints, and views, and specifies requirements for architecture documentation and frameworks. The standard enables consistent, traceable architecture communication and supports governance across projects.

✔

  • Increased consistency in architecture representations across teams
  • Improved traceability of decisions and requirements
  • Facilitates governance and compliance audits

✖

  • Increased documentation effort, particularly initially
  • Requires disciplined stakeholder collaboration
  • Standard does not fully prescribe format; interpretation variance remains

  • Number of maintained views

    Counts active and up-to-date architecture representations.

  • Traceability ratio

    Ratio of documented decisions to their associated requirements.

  • Stakeholder coverage

    Percentage of relevant stakeholders for whom views exist.

Enterprise architecture repository

Central collection of views and viewpoints for an enterprise IT portfolio.

Product-line architecture documentation

Documentation of common and variable elements within a product family.

Architecture decision record

Traceable record of architecture decisions with associated views.

1

Identify stakeholders and prioritize viewpoints

2

Introduce templates for views and architecture documents

3

Run pilots in one domain and incorporate feedback

4

Establish governance processes and maintenance cycles

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Stale views without traceability to current implementations
  • Missing automation for conformance checks
  • Inconsistent terminology usage in architecture descriptions
documentation-maintenancestakeholder-alignmentcomplexity-management
  • Documentation used as sole control mechanism without review
  • Mandatory full formalization in every iteration
  • Using the standard as a pure compliance label
  • Strict adherence to templates prevents sensible deviations
  • Neglecting operational aspects when estimating documentation effort
  • Unclear responsibilities for maintenance and updates
Architecture thinking and modeling experienceStakeholder facilitation and communication skillsKnowledge of quality attributes and evaluation methods
Stakeholder requirements and perspectivesQuality attributes such as security, performance and maintainabilityEnterprise and domain governance
  • • Existing organizational processes and tools
  • • Limited capacity for initial documentation
  • • Confidentiality and compliance requirements