CPSA CPSA Architecture Decision Making Questions and Answers 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which stakeholder concern is most critical to capture before making a major architectural decision?
- Conflicting quality attribute priorities among different stakeholder groups (Correct answer)
- The color scheme preferred by the design team
- The number of developers available for the sprint
- The preferred programming language of the tech lead
Correct answer: Conflicting quality attribute priorities among different stakeholder groups
Understanding conflicting quality attribute priorities between stakeholders is essential so that trade-offs can be consciously negotiated.
Question 2: What does 'fitness for purpose' mean when evaluating an architectural decision?
- The decision adequately addresses the architecturally significant requirements and stakeholder needs (Correct answer)
- The software can run on any hardware platform
- The system passes all unit tests
- The design conforms to the latest industry trends
Correct answer: The decision adequately addresses the architecturally significant requirements and stakeholder needs
Fitness for purpose means the architecture appropriately satisfies the specific goals and constraints of the system being built.
Question 3: Why is reversibility an important consideration when making architectural decisions?
- Irreversible decisions carry higher risk and should be deferred or validated more carefully (Correct answer)
- Reversible decisions are always cheaper to implement
- Reversibility ensures the system can be rewritten from scratch quickly
- Irreversible decisions are preferred because they commit teams to a clear path
Correct answer: Irreversible decisions carry higher risk and should be deferred or validated more carefully
High-reversibility decisions can be changed cheaply, so irreversible ones warrant more analysis and stakeholder alignment before commitment.
Question 4: What is the role of 'assumptions' in documenting architectural decisions?
- They identify conditions that are believed to be true but have not been verified, which could invalidate the decision if wrong (Correct answer)
- They list confirmed system requirements from the product backlog
- They describe the software licenses used in the project
- They specify the deployment hardware specifications
Correct answer: They identify conditions that are believed to be true but have not been verified, which could invalidate the decision if wrong
Documenting assumptions makes decision dependencies explicit, so if an assumption is later invalidated, the affected decision can be revisited.
Question 5: Which of the following is a sign of a well-documented architectural decision?
- It includes the problem statement, alternatives considered, rationale, and known trade-offs (Correct answer)
- It only lists the chosen technology with a one-line justification
- It references all the team members who voted for the option
- It contains complete source code for the implemented solution
Correct answer: It includes the problem statement, alternatives considered, rationale, and known trade-offs
A well-documented decision captures the problem, considered alternatives, chosen option, rationale, and the trade-offs accepted.
Question 6: What is 'decision paralysis' in the context of software architecture?
- The inability to commit to an architectural decision due to over-analysis or fear of making the wrong choice (Correct answer)
- A system outage caused by incorrect configuration decisions
- The process of delegating all decisions to the development team
- A formal review step before each deployment
Correct answer: The inability to commit to an architectural decision due to over-analysis or fear of making the wrong choice
Decision paralysis occurs when architects over-analyze options without converging on a choice, often delaying projects and increasing costs.
CPSA CPSA Architecture Decision Making Questions and Answers 2
Which stakeholder concern is most critical to capture before making a major architectural decision?