A Handy Checklist for Safety Software Architecture
The ISO Standard specifies several methods on how to do Safety Software Architecture. These principles are generically stated. But most often these are not clear: - Why are these principles defined? - How do we ensure which principles we have achieved? - Have we achieved the principle sufficiently? For e.g., for a principle that states "restricted size of interfaces', why do I need this rule and how restricted should the size be? In this article, we first explain why these principles are needed in the context of Safety, and then propose a set of questions for each principle. These questions aim to act as a checklist to determine if the principle has been sufficiently satisfied. Assuming that most Organizations have well-defined guidelines for software architecture and the lessons learnt and best practices based on the experience from previous projects, these questions are intended to guide the architect or the reviewer of the architecture to think if all possible aspects hav...