IASA - Architecture Decision Cascade Card

Canvas overview: The decision cascade card looks for downstream impacts from a technology decision. The notion of a decision cascade is to track how one decision impacts another. For example, the operating environment (cloud, hybrid, private cloud) will impact the decision on technology vendors as well as what architectural style to use for service implementation (serverless, microservices, macroservices).

How to use this card

1. Add a Headline. This should be a brief and descriptive summary of the architectural decision being made. For instance, “Move to a Microservices Architecture.”

2. About this Template Section. There is a placeholder for explanatory text about the template itself.

3. Cascade Context. In this section, provide background information that gives context to the decision. This might include business drivers, technical constraints, and alternative solutions that were considered.

4. Decision Biases. Identify any potential biases that could influence the decision-making process. This could be technical preferences or industry trends.

5. Cascades. This section is for the decision itself and all the secondary decisions that flow from it. These secondary decisions can be written on sticky notes and placed on the card. Think about decisions implied by the primary decision. A react interface needs to be hosted in certain ways or needs to connect with microservices or is secured in other ways.

6. Cascade Impacts. Here, outline the anticipated positive and negative downstream consequences of the architectural decision. This might involve impacts on development time, scalability , security, and so on.

7. Resources. List any resources that were consulted when making the decision such as reference architectures, white papers, or industry standards.

About IASA Global: IASA Global is a non-profit association for ALL Technology Architects which was established in 2002. The association is committed to improving the quality of the BT architecture industry by developing and delivering standards, education programs and developing accreditation programs and services that optimize the development of the architecture profession. The IASA network and membership consists of approximately 70,000 people in over 50 countries.

IASA Global has created the world's first and only Business Technology Architecture Body of Knowledge, (BTABoK), which is a free public archive of Business Technology architecture best practices, skills, and knowledge developed from the experience of individual and corporate members of IASA. 

IASA has added templates for over 30 of the most frequently used BTABoK structured canvases into the Miroverse to help accelerate how Technology Architects collaborate on the architecture of the future. Give one a try today, and learn more about IASA at https://iasaglobal.org/.