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IN THIS SECTION, YOU WILL: Get a cheatsheet with all key points from in all sections.

Introductions

Introduction

  • This book will share my approach to running an IT architecture practice in larger organizations based on my experience at AVIV Group, eBay Classifieds, and Adevinta. I call this approach “Grounded Architecture”—architecture with strong foundations and deep roots.
  • Prioritizing people interactions and data over processes and tools, Grounded Architecture aims to connect architecture practice to all organizational levels as an antidote to the “ivory tower” architecture.
  • I also explain my motivation to write this book.

Context: Fast-Moving Global Organizations

  • To better understand any idea or solution, it is crucial to understand the context in which this idea developed.
  • The Grounded Architecture approach has evolved in the context of global, loosely coupled organizations that are diverse, with nonlinear growth dynamics, and under transformation pressures.

Evolution of Architecture: Embracing Adaptability, Scalability, and Data-Driven Decisions

  • I identified the following needs that an architecture function should support: Executing At Scale, Adaptivity, Improving the Quality of Decision-Making with Data, and Maximizing Organizational Alignment & Learning.

Grounded Architecture

Data Foundation

  • The architecture Data Foundation serves as a medium to create a complete, up-to-date picture of critical elements of the technology landscapes of big organizations.
  • The Data Foundation provides an architecture-centric view of data about a technology landscape based on source code analyses, public cloud billing reports, vibrancy reports, or incident tickets.
  • To facilitate the creation of a Data Foundation, I have been working on creating open-source tools that can help obtain valuable architectural insights from data sources, such as source code repositories. Check out open-source architecture dashboard examples and Sokrates.

People Foundation

  • Developing the architecture function requires having competent, empowered, and motivated architects. Architecture practice must carefully organize, empower, and leverage scarce talent.
  • In my work in the past few years, I combined two teams of architects: a small central architecture team and a cross-organizational distributed virtual team.

Architecture Activities Platform

  • The Architecture Activities Platform is a system of processes and agreements enabling architects to do everything architecture typically does, leveraging Data and People Foundations to create a data-informed, organization-wide impact.
  • Examples of activities include: supporting teams in their daily work; tracking tech debt, defining tech debt reduction programs; performing technical due diligence; standardizing processes and documentation; defining cloud, data, and platform strategies.

Transforming Organizations with Grounded Architecture

  • When a Grounded Architecture structure is in place, it can positively transform an organization’s functioning.
  • These impact categories are Executing At Scale, Improving the Quality of Decision-Making with Data, Maximizing Organizational Alignment & Learning, and Higher Adaptivity.

On Being Architect

Architects as Superglue

  • Architects in IT organizations should develop as “superglue,” people who hold architecture, technical details, business needs, and people together across a large organization or complex projects.
  • Architects need to be technically strong. But their unique strengths should stem from being able to relate technical issues with business and broader issues.
  • Architects should stand on three legs: skills, impact, and leadership.

Skills

  • A typical skillset of an architect includes hard (technical) skills, soft (people & social) skills, product development, business skills, and decision-making skills.

Impact

  • Architects’ work is evaluated based on their impact on the organization.
  • Architects can make an impact via three pillars: Big-Picture Thinking, Execution, and Leveling-Up.

Architects’ Career Paths: Raising the Bar

  • Architects’ career paths ideally stem from a strong engineering background.
  • Hiring architects requires constantly raising the bar to ensure a strong and diverse team structure.

On Soft Skills

The Culture Map: Architects’ Culture Compass

  • I have found the work of Erin Meyer, The Culture Map, to be a beneficial tool for architects to work harmoniously with people from various cultures and backgrounds.
  • Meyer’s model contains eight scales, each representing a key area, showing how cultures vary from extreme to extreme: Communicating, Evaluating, Persuading, Leading, Deciding, Trusting, Disagreeing, and Scheduling.

Effective Communication

  • “So What! How to Communicate What Really Matters to Your Audience” by Mark Magnacca focuses on tailored communication for IT professionals. It emphasizes the importance of relevance and audience understanding to enhance the effectiveness of technical discussions.
  • “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott provides a framework for IT leaders to combine personal empathy with direct challenges to foster robust team dynamics and honest communication, which is crucial for project success and team development.
  • “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss introduces negotiation techniques from high-stakes FBI scenarios, adapted for IT and software architecture discussions, to help professionals achieve better outcomes through strategic empathy and questioning.
  • In his book “Supercommunicators”, Charles Duhigg offers several lessons to help you communicate better than ever.
  • Goulston, a psychologist, consultant, author, and frequent TV contributor, has written an insightful book “Just Listen” that delves into effective communication via listening. .

Leadership

  • My view of architecture leadership is inspired by David Marquet’s work and Netflix’s valued behaviors.
  • Marquet focused on leadership and organizational management, particularly emphasizing the principles of Intent-Based Leadership.
  • Borrowing from Netflix’s original values, the following behavioral traits are crucial for architects: communication, judgment, impact, inclusion, selflessness, courage, integrity, curiosity, innovation, and passion.

On Decision-Making

Decision Intelligence in IT Architecture

  • Decision intelligence is the discipline of turning information into better actions.
  • A decision involves more than just selecting from available options; it represents a commitment of resources you

The Human Side of Decision-Making

  • Decision-making is a human activity subject to human biases and limitations.
  • Fundamental biases influencing decision-making include outcome, hindsight, and confirmation biases.
  • Human intuition plays a vital role in decision-making.
  • Group decision-making offers significant advantages but increases complexity as it requires higher decision-making skills from each member.

Economic Modeling: ROI and Financial Options

  • Architects are frequently asked about the (economic) value of architecture or technology investments.
  • Answering this question is a crucial skill for any senior architect. However, answering it concisely and convincingly to a non-technical audience may be difficult.
  • Borrowing from existing literature, I sketch two answers to the question of the economic value of architecture: the return on investment metaphor and the selling options metaphor.

Effortless Architecture

  • Greg McKeown’s “Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most” advocates for a paradigm shift from hard work to smart, effective work by simplifying tasks and processes.
  • Key principles include prioritizing important tasks, leveraging automation, and embracing a mindset that values ease and enjoyment in work.
  • Greg McKeown’s book offers invaluable insights that are particularly relevant for IT architects and software engineers. McKeown’s emphasis on simplifying tasks and processes is crucial in the tech industry, where complexity often dominates.

On Organizational Factors

Cooperation-Based Organizations: Six Simple Rules

  • The Six Simple Rules approach emphasizes that in today’s complicated business environment, you must set up organizational structures based on cooperation.
  • To deal with complexity, organizations should depend on the judgment of their people and on these people cooperating.
  • This view is well aligned with the ideas of Grounded Architecture.

Product-Led Organizations

  • When it comes to product development, I generally recommend two resources for architects: “Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value” by Melissa Perri and “The Discipline of Market Leader” by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema.
  • The build trap occurs when businesses focus too much on their product’s features and functionalities, overlooking customers’ needs and preferences.
  • The Discipline of Market Leader highlights three strategic paths a company can use to achieve market leadership: operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy.

Organizational Governance: Nudge, Taxation, Mandates

  • Architecture practice should support governance models adaptable to organizations’ complex and diverse needs. A technology governance model should be a well-balanced hybrid of three different styles of governing: mandates and bans, taxes, and nudging.
  • Nudging is a form of governing where you create subtle or indirect suggestions influencing someone’s behavior or decision-making without forcing them or limiting their freedom of choice.
  • Governing with taxes (economic incentives) is a form of guiding in which people are not forbidden to make some decisions but need to “pay” some form of taxes on used resources.
  • With mandates and bans, you guide people by explicitly defining what they should or should not do.
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