The practice of Software Architecture

Recently, I read the book “The practice: shipping creative work” by Seth Godin. Previously, I have read “This is marketing”. Both very well written and recommended.

The bridge

I believe there are valuable lessons from “The Practice” that we can take into the Software Architecture practice.

From Seth’s view, the practice is what you and I do every day when we enter our workspace, close the door, and sit down to pursue our dream [1].

Furthermore, the subtitle offers an excellent description of what we do in IT all the time. We ship, meaning we share our work. We create, because it was not there before and it is resolving a problem. It is work, why we are here doing it in the first place.

The practice is not the means to the output, the practice is the output, because the practice is all we can control [2].

Stoicism

Knowing the practice is all that is under our control brings a valuable stoic view of the practice. Focus on things you can control, ignore the rest. The Stoics referred to this as “the dichotomy of control”. Modern psychologists refer to an “internal locus of control” and an “external locus of control.”