Good architects, bad architects
04/20/2009 02:38 PMLet our discussion continue with Janne :) His previous post about design principles got me thinking about people who make the designs and specifications. What are great integration architects made of?
Sugar and spice and all the things nice. Extraordinary ability to absorb tons of information and filter all the essential parts. Power to see an easy and simple solution behind the overwhelming complexity. Yeah really. That's it?
As far as I see it architects should be the ones who simplify things and get the ball rolling. About the abilities of an great architect - to put the most important factor as simple as possible: common sense. Integration is not a rocket science - not even close. From technical perspective solutions are usually as simple as a donkey. So am I comparing myself to a donkey? Why not. I'll argue that most integration cases are technically rather simple. It is the environment and the network of people around it make some cases complicated as .. well .. some place that's really hot. If you just break the wish list into technical pieces and get the key requirements on the table. Forget all the jargon and get to the point. Typically the integration use cases tend to be really really simple. Figure out what does the customer really need and make it happen.
On the other hand that I've heard that sometimes architects have been seen as the necessary evil in some projects. The real developers try to keep the distance from the visionaries who just tend to mess up the actual work. It should not be like that either. Architects should know something more beyond than drawing boxes and process flows. I like to get my hands dirty once in a while and really develop something so I know the tools and what to do with them. It makes much more sense if designer really knows some bits and bytes from the real world and is not only concentrating on fancy Visio drawings. And even though technical requirements are simple there might still occur some challenges - so it makes life in the projects much easier if architects can help on solving the technical problems as well.
To summarize it somehow. It's about people who understand the needs and are ready to adapt on the inevitable changes. And finally it's good that these guys and girls also know the proper tools to solve the problems. All in all it seems quite obvious and not too complicated :) Touché.
Sugar and spice and all the things nice. Extraordinary ability to absorb tons of information and filter all the essential parts. Power to see an easy and simple solution behind the overwhelming complexity. Yeah really. That's it?
As far as I see it architects should be the ones who simplify things and get the ball rolling. About the abilities of an great architect - to put the most important factor as simple as possible: common sense. Integration is not a rocket science - not even close. From technical perspective solutions are usually as simple as a donkey. So am I comparing myself to a donkey? Why not. I'll argue that most integration cases are technically rather simple. It is the environment and the network of people around it make some cases complicated as .. well .. some place that's really hot. If you just break the wish list into technical pieces and get the key requirements on the table. Forget all the jargon and get to the point. Typically the integration use cases tend to be really really simple. Figure out what does the customer really need and make it happen.
On the other hand that I've heard that sometimes architects have been seen as the necessary evil in some projects. The real developers try to keep the distance from the visionaries who just tend to mess up the actual work. It should not be like that either. Architects should know something more beyond than drawing boxes and process flows. I like to get my hands dirty once in a while and really develop something so I know the tools and what to do with them. It makes much more sense if designer really knows some bits and bytes from the real world and is not only concentrating on fancy Visio drawings. And even though technical requirements are simple there might still occur some challenges - so it makes life in the projects much easier if architects can help on solving the technical problems as well.
To summarize it somehow. It's about people who understand the needs and are ready to adapt on the inevitable changes. And finally it's good that these guys and girls also know the proper tools to solve the problems. All in all it seems quite obvious and not too complicated :) Touché.
Response to “Good architects, bad architects”
Thus, an architect needs to be able to gather weak signals from various sources and finally be able to make decisions based on non-complete information. This means that being an architect leads into taking risks – the art of being a good architect is to minimize these risks at the same time bringing as much value to the overall solution as possible.
Response to “Good architects, bad architects”
The problems I see are more related to the separation of these approaches, almost to become separate responsibilities or disciplines with goals of their own. Architect to make the best possible design (or whatever) and for the develper to meet that design. Separation of these responsibilities can lead to wishful thinking, handovers (with loss of information) and scatter of information.
However as any software professional (developer, tester, architect etc.) our goal should be create a solution that meets business needs with the given constraints. That requires collaboration and that also requires working over the separation of responsibilities and disciplines and not separating. I sometimes see organizational Ivory Towers where certain disciplines are separated. Where ever I see this I also see a lot of problems related to that separation. Another and better approach is to have cross-functional self-organizing team with all the disciplines needed work together to solve the business need.
I would summarize that a good software professional, whether that is an architect or whoever, is a person who helps to move the project to meet the needs of the customer. Bad software professional is someone who doesn't or won't do that. Fortunately I see a lot of good software professionals and not too many of those bad ones. However good professionals can still not be very effective because of organizational issues like the ivory towers...
Response to “Good architects, bad architects”
The role of the architect is extreamly important when talking about managing the lifecycle of customers sides integration needs. Without careful planning and understanding of the techniques and the future plans, the project can't be controlled. You have to see the big picture and understand how to be effective and how to get the puzzle done.
Sorry Pekka for the few "jargon's" like the big picture :) Put as I understand anything of the integration world, I feel these things are just essential. You need good architects for cost effectiveness and manageable solutions, that meet's the customer requirements on all the needed levels.
Response to “Good architects, bad architects”
A great integration architecture is able to see beyond the customer requirements and exceed the customer expectation. After all, design is a creative activity, and there is no limit to the human imagination.
Response to “Good architects, bad architects”
About Jukka's comment: I was not dismissing developers or testers. The point I was trying to make is that architect is somehow thought to be a higher rank than a developer. And like you wrote it should not be that way - the common goal is to create a solution which meets the given requirements and constraints. Definitely misinformation or lack of communication are the most common reasons why development does not meet the design.
I would even say that the word architecture is slightly misleading at least in the integration world. Architecture has a certain twang in it's sound. First impression typically is complexity as it should be just the opposite. Maybe we should talk about simplification or something?
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