Facts: The Architect’s “Big Stick”
“Speak softly and carry a big stick: You will go far.”
- African Proverb
Diplomat is a key role that Systems Flow’s architects often fill for our clients. Software projects and change initiatives inevitably bring disputes and disagreements over requirements, scope, priority, standards, architectures and solutions. While most project management disciplines offer approaches to managing issues, we have found a basic mantra that keeps us on track: Read more
Avoiding Accidental Choices
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice…”
Peart, Neil. “Freewill.”Permanent Waves. Mercury 1980.
With frightening frequency, we see technology projects become subject to “accidental choices“, when rigor is bypassed without a conscious choice having been made to do so. Read more
Goal Based Conversations
I find myself asking my children with great frequency, “What is your goal?” Not in a philosophical “What are you going to do with your life” way, but in a “What could your goal be aside from making your sister cry” way. Read more
Architect or Diplomat?
I was approached by a colleague after a recent architecture design meeting who remarked, “Wow, you are quite the diplomat!”, which made me stop and think. This is a common refrain we hear at client sites. While we believe our technical knowledge and experience enable us to bring significant value to clients, we rely just as heavily, if not more, on our diplomacy to broker architecture designs to conclusion. Creating a great design is just a piece of the architect’s puzzle. This led to some ruminations on an Enterprise Architect’s “soft skills” that are not directly related to core technology capabilities and some thoughts regarding architecture diplomacy.