Abstract

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.