Writing about architecture decisions and the people behind them
Longer pieces with sources, for the people who choose vendors, shape teams and sign off on architecture. Shorter notes go to LinkedIn first.
- Speak in their currency: how architects earn influence without authorityA well-understood organization and a well-documented decision get you nowhere if people do not want to act on it. Karol Wiszowaty on stakeholder currencies, strategic empathy, storytelling, treating resistance as a signal, and the trust pyramid.
- “Who broke this?” Why architecture has to remember whyArchitecture records how a system should work and rarely why. When teams and organizations change, the why walks out of the door. Naur’s theory building, stressors, and Architecture Decision Records that keep the organizational context of a decision.
- Inform, consult, decide: the people map behind every architectureProjects rarely die of a bad technical decision alone; they die because someone was not informed or not consulted. How to use a stakeholder map and a RACI per epic, why the vendor belongs in the RACI, and how a data ownership argument moves system boundaries.
- Walk it again: what the first tour of an organization hides from your architectureThe first walk through a business is a guided tour, and architecture built on it models the organization as presented. Why work-as-done differs from work-as-disclosed, what couriers taught a delivery portal, and how to walk an organization more than once.
- Systems copy conversations: what Conway’s Law means when you hire a software houseConway’s Law is about communication, not org charts. When you hire a software house, client and vendor form a temporary organization, and its channels end up in your system. What the research says, and four questions to ask before the first diagram.
Facing one of these decisions?
Tell me what you are deciding and where the risk is. I will tell you honestly whether I can help.