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Discussion on: Solutions Architect Tips - The 5 Types of Architecture Diagrams

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destynova profile image
Oisín

I can't see how the example Persona diagram could be of much value to product owners. They're generally concerned with what the system does, and for whom, rather than how it's done.

Also in that diagram, and most of the others, there are unlabeled icons that require very specific knowledge to understand. Product owners are unlikely to recognise which one stands for an AWS Lambda function, nor understand what that is or why they're looking at it.

For system diagrams, I think the C4 models are pretty good. We use the context and container diagrams only, since the others are far too low level for most purposes. They're pretty simple but they require labelling every node and edge which avoids the problem of someone having to guess what they're looking at based on a fancy picture of a disk or lambda symbol.

But I don't even think the C4 diagrams are very relevant to product specialists -- maybe the system context diagram can be good to just illustrate which pieces we are responsible for, etc.
Perhaps of more value would be old school use-case diagrams or similar UML ideas.