Developer Stories: Improving Architecture in Agile Practice: How Facilitating Knowledge Management and Putting the Customer in the Drivers Seat Enables Sound Architectural Design

Within the field of Software Engineering emergence of agile methods has been a hot topic since the late 90s. eXtreme Programming (XP) ([1]) was one of the first agile methods and is one of the most well-known. However research has pointed to weaknesses in XP regarding supporting development of viable architectures. To strengthen XP in this regard a new practice: Developer Stories ([2]) was introduced in 2006 - mainly based on a theoretical argumentation. This paper reports from extensive experimentation with, and elaboration of the new practice. Results from this experimentation shows that using Developer Stories increases the likelihood of developing a viable architecture through a series of deliberate choices, through creating disciplined and recurring activities that: 1) Facilitate sharing and embodying of knowledge about architectural issues, and 2) heighten visibility of refactorings for both customers and developers.