The Politics of Design

Architect's Core Values: Unity - Progressing, as one mind, toward a common endpoint

Have you ever run in a 3-legged race? You and your tethered partner need to be in sync to complete the race let alone be competitive.

Now think about the average size of the project teams you’ve worked on and imagine trying to rapidly progress to any end point with members of this team tied to each other. Do you typically work with five person teams? Fifteen? Thirty!?!

My point is running a race by yourself is easy compared to when you need to cross the finish line as a team. However, building technical solutions is much more complex than just putting one foot in front of the other and requires multiple team members to deliver. The larger the team the larger the challenge especially considering the finish line may not be clearly in sight and sometimes moves in the middle of the race.




Architects are not exclusively responsible for the team moving as one mind toward the common end point but they shoulder the lion’s share in many cases. An architect who holds unity as a value is naturally going to galvanize the team around a common solution and attempt to clarify the end-goal when the finish line is unclear.

More often than not, architects rely on influence in place of authority to establish vision for application and data landscapes. It doesn’t matter where the vision came from, or if it evolves based upon diverse team perspective but it is typically the architect who has to push for and clarify the vision and keep future solutions inline with the established direction. To be effective at influence the architect needs to bring people together under the common vision.

Building a unified team takes time, can’t be commissioned and may be impossible with some teams. An architect or anyone trying to establish some level of unity among the team members should consider these steps to build unity among their build team.

Embrace diversity:
Realize that diverse opinions should be leveraged as a way to quickly triangulate your approachs. Respect others’ opinions and leverage their diverse perspectives.

Outline options when roadblocks or impasses are met:
Solicit the team for a list of options, weigh out the pros and cost of each and pick the best one.

Leverage conflict:
Be comfortable with and use conflict as a quick way to determine which opinions move you toward your goal.

Maintaining Unity takes effort:
Watch out for the throw-it-over-the-wall mentality. This is a sign of a chink in group’s unity.


If you have comments on how to improve the unity of your team, or have a different perspective, please post a comment.

Architect's Core Values:
Tenacity – Never stop trying:
I can think of no better value to follow courage than tenacity. Courage moves someone from instinct to action but tenacity is the desire to keep on standing.

I have yet to see an IT shop of any size where influencing others was not a core part of an architect’s job. Influence brings compromise at times where, even though your 100% confident the approach you advocate is the best approach to take, the stakeholders will take a different path. Your stakeholders may even take on this Lucy-esque appearance when the next challenge arises and you line up to kick the ball…just one more time Charlie Brown! Loosing several battles in a row can deflate anyone.

Well, suck it up! It’s part of the gig and part of being an architect. You’re permitted to deal with temporary disappointment when the cards don’t fall the way you envisioned but you have to remember that success is measured in inches, not miles and by months or years, not days.

Acting in the best interest of the company and its systems is a delicate balancing act. Architects, like the development team, want to delight the business with the features they need when they need it but they also have to look further out and consider the sustainability of the system and anticipate future demands of the business.


Tenaciousness is required in all architects. Regardless of their area of focus, architects face significant time and cost challenges on solution delivery. Building it the architecturally sound way will frequently be prioritized below time to market and lower cost solutions. The reality is delivering the best solution for the business takes a balance of influences from project management, the delivery team AND the architecture team.

Architecture influence is a required element in ALL successful solutions. However, architecture influence generally isn’t the main ingredient and, in some rare cases, the solution will only contain trace amounts.

Tenacity is difficult to coach because there are no pre-described guidelines or formulaic equations to determine when standing resolute is a good idea but three guidelines are outlined below to help guide the development of this essential value.

1 - Use Logic - Don’t confuse tenacity for stubbornness:
A tenacious architect comes to a discussion, listens and advocates a sustainable approach even if this approach was bypassed previously. A stubborn architect advocates the same approach regardless of the differences in the current project and the last just because they seem similar. Architects should let pragmatism be their friend and use common sense to determine the degree of architectural influence that needs to be applied to the solution.

2 - Tenacity is NOT about who wins:
Listen carefully to problem-solving discussions. Are your architects and developers trying to deliver the best solution possible or are they trying to win the argument? Getting emotionally engaged in any discussion is easy if you are in the discussion and easy to spot if you are an observer. If you find you’re getting too emotionally engaged in a debate (or witness someone else too emotionally engaged) use some data or fact to diffuse the emotion and remain pragmatically centered.

3 - Pick your battles - Bend but don’t break:
If you’ve outlined some logical reasons why the architecturally sound approach will cost less over the long term and used some data from actual production situations to diffuse “red herring” attempts to win an emotional battle, you’ll need to take stock in your position. Is this a battle worth fighting? Worth escalation? If it is…push for the appropriate solution as hard as possible, build support with your management team but most importantly, understand your minimum success criteria so the solution can move forward without determent and if it does fall below the minimal success criteria, be prepared to articulate the tangible and intangible costs of doing so.

Business is not linear. One day you’re focusing on projects to gain market share, the next to improve operational efficiencies but your architectural values are part of your DNA.

Do you agree with this architectural value? Are there other guidelines you advocate?

photo: Tenacity

Architect's Core Values:
Courage - standing up for what you believe.
It's word association time. If I say "Courage", you think what? Cowardly Lion? "Red Badge of..."? Well, I think "Software Architect".

At some time in their career every architect has experienced this scene:

The project team is meeting. Deadlines are looming and costs are building. The stakeholder wants to see progress, but there's an obstacle in the road and it's a big one. A decision has to be made and made well. This decision has far-reaching implications beyond this project. There is discussion and proposals are floated. There is the proposal to plug in a quick-fix; something quick and dirty. There's the proposal to short-circuit one of the primary design objectives. There's the proposal that defers the issue to the next project or release.

The group discusses the alternatives and starts to lean towards one of these "lesser solutions". At some point in the meeting, they might even all agree that if the situation were different - if we had more budget, more time, or more support from our executive management - we'd definitely attack the issue more strategically. They might agree that they want to address the obstacle with a well-conceived, sound, and sustainable design, but given the situation today they just need to patch it and move on.

"It's not a great solution, but we have to do what we have to do, right? Is everyone agreed?"

Architect's Core Values:
Impact – the desire to create something great:
Delivering something that’s used by the business is good…but delivering something that’s a game-changer is deeply satisfying. Architects are driven by the desire to create efficient, highly effective, long lasting solutions. Substantive initiatives don’t need to be in the coolest business area or developed in the latest technology but the commonalities these initiatives share are: the significant need of the business, complexity of the challenge and the criticality of getting it right. These solutions are the first ones to come out when sharing some battle scars with some current/former colleagues.

Substantive initiatives don’t come along every day but when they do, your impact players run toward them. It’s the challenge combined with the ability to influence the way their company does business that drives them in this direction. It’s the satisfaction that comes from knowing they made an impact.

Is IMPACT something that drives you? Something that drives your staff? Please join me and help establish the Architect’s Core Values. What do you think drives the determination of an architect?

photo: Jeff EngelHardt

What is your most pervasive work-related thought on your commutes to work? Is it what you didn’t get done the day before? Your boss? The bewilderment on why simple challenges turn into multiple meetings and bureaucracy? Do you get amped up thinking about what the day holds or is it just another day in the office? Take fifteen seconds and really think about it…

We’re living in interesting times (if you consider turbulence interesting) and I’ve found myself contemplating what makes me and the people around me “tick”. We’re all faced with increasing challenges at work but I often find my determination amplify as I go to work in the morning. Almost like prepping for a competitive sport: determining what our game plan is or establishing success criteria for the day.

After some contemplation, I believe it is my core architectural values that drive my behavior and the behavior of my architect staff and peers. Our core values are our guidepost. You might be thinking: “Great! He finally figured out the basic fact that values drive behavior”. If so, you might be overlooking the single most important element that galvanizes and motivates your team.

Core values are the reason we bring our “a-game” each day. The reason we fight day after day on the same issues such as standards or patterns. The reason we resist the urge to accept the path of least resistance when we’re sure it jeopardizes future enhancements. The reason we strive to balance the time, cost and quality of solutions with an eye on the horizon.

I believe great architects share similar values. Values that bind us together and keep us on track. Values that are as much a part of us as the color of our hair or the stride in our step.

Please join me and help establish the Architect’s Core Values. I'll reveal my list over the next few posts. More importantly, I would love to see what you think drives us to give 110% each and every day.


Values:
- Impact: the desire to create something great.

photo: IdeaMill