The Architect’s USP

Standing out in the marketplace (Morocco 2013)
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 11-11-2013 17:09 | Resolution: 3064 x 3064 | ISO: 1600 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/500s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 300.0mm | Location: Djemaa el Fna | State/Province: Marrakech-Tensift-Al Haouz | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 100-300/F4.0-5.6

Very early on in any course in marketing or economics you will encounter the concept of the "Unique Selling Proposition", the USP, that factor which differentiates a given product or service from its competitors. It’s "what you have that competitors don’t", a key reason to buy this one rather than an alternative.

With the current trend away from development specialisms such as architect towards relatively homogenous development teams, it is perhaps instructive to ask "What is the architect’s USP?" Why should I employ someone who claims that specialism, and give him or her design responsibility, rather than just expecting my developers to cover it?

I have written elsewhere about why I don’t buy into the ultra-agile concept of "architecture emerging from the code", any more than I would bet money on the script for Hamlet "emerging" from a finite group of randomly typing monkeys. (Of course, if you have an infinite number of monkeys then it’s more achievable, but that’s infinity for you…) However that argument is about process, and I believe that almost irrespective of process a good architect’s skills and perspectives can have a significant beneficial effect on the result. That’s what I want to explore here.

The Architect’s Perspective

One key distinction between the manager, the architect and the developer is that of perspective. As an architect I spend a lot of time understanding and analysing the different forces on a problem. These design forces may be technical, or human: financial, commercial or political. The challenge is to find a solution which best balances all the design forces, which if possible satisfies the requirements of all stakeholders. It is usually wrong and ultimately counter-productive to simply ignore some of the stakeholders or requirements as "less important" – any stakeholder (and by stakeholders I mean all those involved, not just senior managers) can derail a project if not happy.

Where design forces are either aligned or orthogonal, there is usually a "sweet spot" which strikes an acceptable balance. The problem effectively becomes one of performing a multi-dimensional linear analysis, and then articulating the solution.

However, sometimes the forces act in direct opposition. A good example is system security, where requirements for broad, easy access directly conflict with those for high security. In these cases the architect has to invest heavily in diplomacy skills – to invest a lot of time understanding and addressing different stakeholder positions. One common problem is "requirements" expressed as solutions, which usually hide an underlying concern that can be met many ways, once understood and articulated.

In cases of diametrically opposed requirements, there are usually three options:

  • Compromise – find an intermediate position acceptable to both. This may work, but it may be unacceptable to both, or it may fatally compromise the architecture.
  • Allow one requirement to dominate. This has to be a senior level business decision, but the architect must be sensitive to whether the outcome is genuinely accepted and viable, or whether suppressing the other requirements will cause the solution to fail.
  • Reformulate the problem to remove or reduce the conflict. In the security example the architect might come up with a cunning partitioning of the system which allows access to different elements under different security rules.

Of course, you can’t resolve all the problems at once – that way lies madness. An architect uses techniques like layered or modular structures, and multiple views of the architecture to "separate concerns". These are powerful tools to manage the problem’s complexity.

The architect must look at the big picture, balance the needs of multiple stakeholders, and bring to bear an understanding of the business, of strategy, of technology and of development project work at the same time. If these responsibilities are split among too many heads and isolated within separate organisational confines then you lose the ability to see how it all fits together, and increase the danger of things "falling through the cracks".

The Architect’s Responsibilities

The architecture, and its resolution of the various design forces (i.e. how it meets various stakeholder needs) have to be communicated to many who are not technical experts. The architect acting as technical leader must take much of this responsibility. The messages may have to be reformulated separately for different audiences: I have had great success with single-topic briefing papers, which describe aspects like security in business terms, and which are short and focused enough to encourage the readers to also consider their concerns separately.

The architect must listen to the voice inside, and carry decisions through with integrity. For an architect, the question is whether the architecture is elegant, and will deliver an adequately efficient, reliable and flexible solution. If the internal answer to this is not an honest "yes", it is important to understand why not, and decide whether all the various stakeholders can live with the compromises.

The architect must protect the integrity of the solution against the slings and arrows of outrageous projects. (Hamlet again?) Monitor in particular those design aspects which reflect compromises between design forces, because they will inevitably come under renewed pressure over time. The architect must not only do the right thing, but ensure it is done right.

While every person on the project should be doing these things, there is a natural tendency for most to allow delivery priorities to take precedence. A developer’s documentation, for example, must be adequate to communicate the solution to other developers and maintainers, but does not have to be comprehensible to other stakeholders. However for the architect integrity, fit and communication of the solution are primary responsibilities, not optional. In addition the architect should have sufficient independence to call out and challenge conflicts of interest when they do occur.

The Architect’s Skills

The architect should be equipped with a distinct set of skills in support of these responsibilities. These will include:

  • Design patterns and knowledge of how to apply them
  • Tools and techniques to formally document both detail designs and wider portfolios
  • Methods to ensure that requirements, especially non-functional ones, are documented unambiguously
  • Methods to review a solution design, model its behaviour and confirm the solution’s ability to meet requirements
  • The ability to clearly communicate solutions, issues and potential resolutions to a wide variety of stakeholders
  • The ability to support the project and programme managers in handling the impact of issues and related decisions

Now it’s perfectly possible (and highly desirable) that others on the project will have many of these skills between them. However their combination in the architect is key to the delivery of the architect’s value, and a solution with a good chance of meeting its various objectives.

The Architect’s Position

A good architect should be able to operate in various organisational positions or roles and still deliver the above. Irrespective of the official organisation chart I often end up working between two or more groups, and I suspect this is a common position for many architects. It may actually be a natural result of adopting the architect’s unique perspectives.

The architect’s role may to some extent overlap with that of developers, analysts or product owners, and in smaller organisations or projects the architect may also take on one of these roles. In that case the architect must be able to "wear the appropriate hat" when focusing on a specific project issue or taking a wider view. The architect must then ensure that his or her ability to look at the wider picture is not compromised by the project relationship.

Conversely, a central architecture group may become accused of being in an ivory tower, separate from the realities of the business and the developers at the coal face. An architect in such a position must actively display an interest in and willingness to help with practical project issues.

A good architect will reconcile the need for a broad perspective and the specific responsibilities of a given position, thereby delivering distinct value compared with someone who has a more specific scope. I may on occasion be challenged for taking a wider interpretation of scope than others, but the insights which accrue from that perspective are almost always seen as valuable.

Conclusions

These are generalisations, and in practice there are as many variants on the architect’s role, skills and delivery as there are individuals who take the title. However it is generally true that an architect’s involvement increases the chance that a solution’s behaviour will be predictable, understood, and a good fit to its objectives. That’s the fundamental USP of the architect.

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