New toys do not guarantee success
If new toys do not guarantee success, what does it? I go through my 6 key ingredients that will help with that.
Throwing new technologies like darts to a dartboard to see if we hit the solution. Dilbert’s comic strip seems incredible, but it happens.
These are my 6 key ingredients to pay attention when changing the system/s architecture:
- New toys do not guarantee success
- Business/IT collaboration
- Balancing correctness with agility
- Deliver on time and budget
- Own your strategic roadmap
- Vision and direction
New toys do not guarantee success
Copy-pasting the current architecture (mess) in tomorrow’s new technology will only give you the same outcome with shiny new tools. No way to get benefits this way. New technologies are not a guarantee for working solutions. Focus on having top talent Engineers all aligned to the objective and lean processes, and they will figure out the best tools for the job.
Adopting a new shiny tool without addressing the people and process element will unlikely yield any improvement. [4]
Business/IT collaboration
Strategic architectural changes is not just a technology play, it requires business and IT to work together. Quick feedback and friction-less iterations will help significantly.
On one hand, changing the status quo is challenging, particularly in medium to large Enterprises. However, on the other, not changing could be the last decision you make.
Balancing correctness with agility
Balancing correctness with agile is hard. Retrofit feedback from each Sprint, do not delay it until it is too late. This may seem simple when talking about 1 or 2 systems; however, extrapolate it to a strategic architectural change and you will see it how challenging it is.
Deliver on time and budget
No business have ever complained about IT being too fast or inexpensive. Period.
Own your strategic roadmap
Another relevant point is following the company’s identity without being “trapped” by your vendor’s strategic roadmap. Have your own and own it.
Vision and direction
The importance of a good architecture depends not just on technical expertise and great communication skills; but on leadership, this is vision and direction. I like this quote [2] from David Knott, Chief Architect:
People may obey managers because of hierarchy and budgets, but they follow leaders because they provide vision and direction. If architects provide that vision and direction, if they turn ambiguity into clarity, then people will follow them and they will achieve the leadership dimension
References
- [1] Strategic architectural transformation by Zhamak Dehghani, Mike Mason and Ryan Murray
- [2] Architecture Leadership: The clarity pump by David Knott
- [3] Ten practical ideas for organizing and managing your enterprise architecture
- [4] Solution Architecture: Docs-as-code by yam yam architect
Disclaimer
This is a personal article. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
