The Boundary between Architecture Definition and Design

One of the important decisions an architect will have to make is whether something important enough for worry about or whether it can safely be left until the detailed design phase - in other words, whether it is architecturally significant.

Phillipe Kruchten:
A concern, problem, or system element is architecturally significant if it has a wide impact on the structure of the system or on its important quality properties such as performance, scalability, security, reliability, or evolvability.

whether something is architecturally significant depends on - skill, and expertise of the architect - circumstances of individual projects Strategy 1. determine architecturally significant areas 2. be sure you understand deeply your stakeholders in fields related with architecturally significant areas 3. You need to consider aspects of your architecture at all levels, from the strategy to the code in architecturally significant areas.

References

1. Software System Architecture Nick Rozanski, Edin Woods (software-systems-architecture-rozanski-woods), p. 59