Excerpt from Enterprise Architecture Fundamentals:
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Quality, summarily defined as the probability that nothing will go amiss during a product’s life cycle, is set on two dimensions:
- Product (or intrinsic) quality is determined by the resources, time and engineering skills invested in the process and its supporting environment, with well understood relationships between means and ends.
- Functional (or external) quality is contingent on the reliability of requirements and the stability of the business environment, both subject to uncertainties.
Compared to product quality, an engineering variable that can be managed in line with the criticality of applications (e.g., medical devices), functional quality is directly affected by the expected shelf-life of applications. Nonetheless, when business value is not affected by delays, more time given to decision-making will usually improve products’ functional as well as product quality.
Given that projects managed independently at the application level offer more latitude for direct negotiation and win-win adjustments between business stakeholders and development teams, such projects should be the default option. Accordingly, enterprise architects should try to organize projects in order to circumscribe responsibilities to well-identified business units.
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