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Discussion on: Organic Software Architecture

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kmruiz profile image
Kevin Mas Ruiz

Hola Ferran! Thanks for your feedback!

Most business stakeholders usually don't see architecture as a competitive advantage, for them it's painful and it's only slowing down teams. Probably they have never seen a good architecture in place and usually there have been attempts to fix team performance before.

However there is an opportunity in those environments because management layers tend to rotate because of the burn-out and the impossibility to fulfill the expectations of growth of those companies.

The approach I would follow (depending on the stakeholder of course) is:

First, understand their goals and motivations, do not focus on the pain points. This will allow you to understand where to start focusing and it will allow you to understand their strategic long-term goals.

Second, make expectations clear. You don't need to fix everything, only whatever is a blocker for their goals. Focus on their strategy and adapt yours. Use this moment to start talking about business solutions and requirements, use trade-off sliders. It's important to mention that you want a long-term goal, so try to align stakeholders on long-term goals. You don't need something really pragmatic, just a vision where everyone agrees.

Third, find a way where both parties are comfortable to start working on their strategy. If you succeed in both earlier points, negotiating time from teams should be easier (not easy), as you are running their strategy and their priorities. This might need restructuring teams, as most of the times, team organizations are not aligned with business goals.

Four, share business goals with teams and propose a short-term plan (with something like a Lean Inception 😜) per team that is important for the business goals. In my experience, something around 1 quarter of work is safe enough to be done and to fit changing business needs. Consider the business strategy always as long-term, but not stable, it can change per quarter.

We can have a deeper conversation if a point is not clear :D.

Thanks!

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gomisferran profile image
Ferran Gomis

Brilliant! Thank you!