Since many parts of the architecture evaluation steps of the Cost Benefit Analysis
Method (CBAM) depend on the stakeholders’ empirical knowledge and intuition, it is very
important that such an architecture evaluation method be able to faithfully reflect the
knowledge of the experts in determining Architectural Strategy (AS). However, because
CBAM requires the stakeholders to make a consensus or vote for collecting data for
decision making, it is difficult to accurately reflect the stakeholders’ knowledge in the
process. In order to overcome this limitation of CBAM, we propose the two new CBAM-
based methods for software architecture evaluation, which respectively adopt the Analytic
Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Analytic Network Process (ANP). Since AHP and ANP
use pair-wise comparison they are suitable for a cost and benefit analysis technique since its
purpose is not to calculate correct values of benefit and cost but to decide AS with highest
return on investment. For that, we first define a generic process of CBAM and develop
variations from the generic process by applying AHP and ANP to obtain what we call the
CBAM+AHP and CBAM+ANP methods. These new methods not only reflect the
knowledge of experts more accurately but also reduce misjudgments. A case study
comparison of CBAM and the two new methods is conducted using an industry software
project. Because the cost benefit analysis process that we present is generic, new cost
benefit analysis techniques with capabilities and characteristics different from the three
methods we examine here can be derived by adopting various different constituent
techniques.