In August 1995, the IEEE Software Engineering Standards Committee (SESC) chartered an IEEE Architecture Planning Group (APG) to set direction for incorporating architectural thinking into IEEE standards. In April 1996, the Architecture Working Group (AWG) was created to implement the recommendations made by APG to the SESC. The AWG was chaired by Basil Sherlund, vice-chairs Ronald Wade, David Emery, the specification was edited by Rich Hilliard. The AWG had 25 members. Drafts of the specification were balloted and commented on by 130 international reviewers. In September 2000, the IEEE-SA Standards Board approved the specification as IEEE Std 1471-2000.
In 2006, ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1), Information technology/Subcommittee SC 7, Software and systems engineering, adopted the specification as ISO/IEC 42010, under a special “fast-track procedure”, in parallel with its approval by national bodies of ISO and IEC. A coordinated revision of this standard by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG42 and IEEE CS commenced in 2006, following the successful ISO/IEC fast-track ballot and in line with the IEEE standard 5-year review of the standard.
In November 2011,[2] IEEE 1471-2000 and ISO/IEC 42010:2007 was superseded by ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011, Systems and software engineering — Architecture description.