Abstract. To remain competitive, organizations are challenged to make in-formed and feasible value-driven design decisions in order to ensure the quality of their software systems. However, there is a lack of support for evaluating the economic impact of these decisions with regard to software reference architec-tures. This damages the communication among architects and management, which can result in poor decisions. This paper aims at ameliorating this problem by presenting a pragmatic preliminary economic model to perform cost-benefit analysis on the adoption of software reference architectures as a key asset for optimizing architectural decision-making. The model is based on existing val-ue-based metrics and economics-driven models used in other areas. A prelimi-nary validation based on a retrospective study showed the ability of the model to support a cost-benefit analysis presented to the management of an IT consult-ing company. This validation involved a cost-benefit analysis related to reuse and maintenance; other qualities will be integrated as our research progresses.

Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Software reference architectures are becoming widely adopted by organizations that need to support the design and maintenance of software applications of a shared domain. For organizations that plan to adopt this architecture-centric approach, it becomes fundamental to know the return on investment and to understand how software reference architectures are designed, maintained, and used. Unfortunately, there is little evidence-based support to help organizations with these challenges. This paper presents the construction of empirically-grounded guidelines that support organizations to decide on the adoption of software reference architectures and to gather evidence to improve RA-related practices. We describe the results of an action research initiative held in everis, an IT consulting firm. Then, we report how these results are being packaged in order to create guidelines that could be used in similar contexts as the one of everis.