My IASA meetings are giving me a lot of material to blog about, and to tell you the truth this weeks meeting was no exception. Today I want to talk to you about what characteristics you need to exhibit if you want to be a successful architect.
Communication is the most important aspect of your job as an architect. Without the ability to listen and understand the problem space, as well as communicate your ideas for solving those problems, you’re absolutely sunk.
To be successful in your job, you must be able to communicate with your stakeholders, customers, and technicians on 3 levels, using the well known learning paradigm. Some people learn by listening to verbal communication, some learn through written communication, while others learn through visual communication. To get your ideas successfully through to those following your lead, you must communicate on all three levels.
Understanding, and demonstrating you understand the business and how it works is the second most important aspect of your job. Without this displayed understanding your customers will never gain confidence in your ability to solve their problems.
The successful architect must be also have an unending thirst for knowledge, and the ability to extract from the customer or stakeholders what he or she wants. The more you know about your customer, the closer the solution will be to their needs. Certain examples of this are the ability to ask probing questions, the ability to demo and get feedback, and the ability to involve your customers and stakeholder in the product development lifestyle with many opportunities to contribute.
The ability to apply software/hardware solutions – an inherently abstract concept – to the problem space is vital to being a successful architect. You must be able to take the business problem, and abstract it into a software design, and implement the most appropriate technology. This is key, don’t be a technology bigot.
Manage your time effectively. Stay within your estimated time to complete the project. We all know things arise that you cannot anticipate during the course of a project. However, with enough experience you can make your estimates reflect many of the possible problems that come up. Experienced architects over time develop personal formulas that they use when given an estimate taking into account unforeseen issues. If the anticipated unforeseen issues do not come up, make sure your work is turned in under budget. Your stakeholders will get a good feeling about you when you show that you are committed enough to the outcome that your willing to also keep the costs down.
An insatiable desire to learn. The world of technology and business is constantly changing. As an architect you must always make sure your toolbox is changing with the times. Invariably you will be in a meeting with someone who will ask you about a given technological or business concept and you will need to be prepared to handle it.
Flexibility – businesses change get over it. We are not building bridges where the physics are constant, the distance is known, and the theory has been proven over 1k years. We are doing – dare I say – something inherently more difficult and that is modeling human behavior. This increases the level of difficulty while at the same time, gives you the ability to ask your clients and stakeholders what it is they actually want, and if your getting it right.
Jeff – I had no idea you were a fellow wordpress-er. Congrats on the blog. It looks nice.
Thanks!!
..still trying to get the hang of this blogging thing. I am also twittering.. @OraCon for serious stuff.. @theartoftech for small tech, and general fun.
Interesting article. Thanx.