Lucas Architecture Academy

Lucas Architecture Academy is a forum for current and upcoming architects. During a 10 months part time program experienced practitioners and Lucas researchers have seminars, evaluations and discussions on topics related to advance software architecture. A typical 10 month program consists of 6 sessions, each 2-3 days off site.

Advantages for participating companies are:

A practical and tailored program for educating their architects
Argument for attracting talented people
A systematic way of co-operating with Lucas
Learn from peers in other companies

Advantages for Lucas research are:

A systematic way of co-operating with companies
Generate ideas for research
A framework for research with companies on architecture related topics
The LUCAS Architecture Academy is given as a Ph.D. course

The Lucas Architecture Academy is organized as a commissioned education.The participants receives five credits.

Program

1: Architecture overview

Architecture requirements
Architecture styles
Architecture views
Notations: UML, SDL, etc.
Documenting and communicating architectures
Role of an architect

2: Technical management of projects

Managing requirements
Incremental development
Estimation techniques
Technical part of planning
Efficient technical decision structures
Steering group

3: Architecture technologies

Object oriented frameworks and patterns
Middleware (COM, Corba, EEJB, ...)
Hardware abstraction layer
Reference architecture
Verifiable architecture
Non functional properties (Real-time, distribution, fault-tolerance, safety...)

4: Supporting technologies

Development tools
Requirement management tools
Design and test tools
Configuration management tools
Development processes: RUP, XP and CMM-I
Fundamentals and how they can support the architecture

5: Product and system management

Product life cycle management
Product line architectures
Producing business cases

6: Architecture assessments

SEI'S ATAM and SAAM
Key project assessments
Practical assessments done in cross company teams on real projects
Results discussed in separate session

Assessment - organisation

5 participants in each group (3 from assessed company + one from each of the other companies for cross learning)
Each group lead by 2 Lucas mentors
Preparation and documentation done by mentors and 2 persons from each group (round robin)
Staffing in groups changed to allow people to learn from each other

Assessment - agenda

Preparation
- Agreement of purpose by mentor
- Collection of material
- Initial interview of architects
- Synthesis of material for assessment team
On site period
- Day 1: Architecture focus
- Day 2: Organisation and project focus
Reporting
- Written report + presentation

The organisation of LUCAS Architecture Academy

Participation - companies

LUCAS Gold member
Max 6 participants per year
Participant in steering group selecting topics
Strong influence on case studies
LUCAS Silver member
Max 2 participants per year
LUCAS Bronze members and other companies may participate at the cost of 22 500 SEK
Extracts from some sessions are presented as open Lucas seminars

Steering group
Gold member representatives
Lucas steering: Boris Mangusson, Per Runeson, Karl-Erik Årzén
Even-André Karlsson

External advisors
Jan Bosch
Poal Clements