The Politics of Design

Architect’s must hold sustainability as a core value and seek a pragmatic balance for every solution.

This is more difficult than you might think. Many IT solutions don’t have set requirements to last a set number of years. How long should a software system last? 15 years? 5 years? 5 months? What about your enterprise databases or your ERP system? How long is that new Collections system expected to last or how about that quick 3rd party integration service?

Consider the below formula for solution sustainability.

Sustainability = (Requirement + Budget + Technology) / time to market.

Requirement – assuming there is no explicit requirement: has the business pushed for a longer lasting solution (5 points) or one that is temporary (1 point).

Budget – There is never surplus budget but does the business case support buying/building a solid application ( 5 points) or is the project sponsor line-iteming out error handling to save a few pennies(1 point)?

Technology – is the solution based upon mainstream, open technologies (5 points) or proprietary, legacy(1 point)?

Time to market – Is the project being rushed to meet some legal regulation or significant business opportunity/challenge (5 points) or can you create a reasonable delivery plan (1 point).

If this is the formula for sustainability then who determines the values for these variables and helps steer them toward the optimal level of sustainability possible for your systems?



Your project team is guaranteed to have someone pushing the time and cost dimensions…your architect needs to *balance* these with the sustainability dimension.

While the other core values may surface at various times, sustainability must be considered on every project. This does not mean building to outlast the business need…just building to last long enough.

Who is the steward of sustainability for your IT systems?