Let me elaborate a bit on my original request. 1. I'm assuming that most or all of the previous developers/architects of the system are unavailable. All that's left are the artifacts, code plus whatever else. There's no one to talk to about where to start, etc. or about the overall structure.
2. Imagine that, instead of being a new chief architect, that the plan is to replace 20% of the developers on the project every year but not to increase staffing levels by 20% (which is what would be required with the current methods of getting people up to speed.) 3. I didn't rule out active discovery of content. In fact, that's what people do today in our organization; they look at the code and analyze the code, using tools of varying degrees of sophistication. The problem is, it's terribly time consuming, and the same discovery process has to be repeated by each new team member; that's what takes the 6-12 months - "active" discovery of content. I'd like to jump start or shortcut the process. [I note that In educational theory, "active" learning doesn't mean that you put the students on a desert island and expect them to actively discover particle physics; it means that you carefully set up situations in which the students participate that enable them to learn. I can think of equivalents for learning a large piece of software, but developing them requires even more work than writing the 20 page document.] Ruven
