Architect Training

Role of the Architect Class

Architecture Class:

- Seattle/Tacoma, WA July 23-26, 2001

Software Architecture and UML Class

How To Lead, How to Follow, and 
How to Get Out of the Way!

Background and Objectives

How many architecture efforts have you worked on or known about that just fizzled or were blown up? Architecture is rightly touted for its strategic contribution to the company, but doing it well is problematic. Generally, the issues that derail the effort are not technical, but organizational. In this seminar, we consider the roles that are involved architecture programs, and what they can do to contribute to the success or failure of the architecture. In particular, we look at what it means to "lead, follow or get out of the way" (L/F/G), given our role and the current context of the architecture project. The objective is to create a shift in how we perceive our roles and provide models, tools and skills that will help make our architectures more successful.

Seminar Outline

Introduction

Learning from Great Architects

Roles and Responsibilities

• Identify the roles related to architecture
• §Map out the architecture value delivery process

L/F/G Framework (see LFGIntro.pdf, 498Kb)

• When is it important to lead, follow, or get out of the way?
• What is good/bad leading, following and getting out of the way?

L/F/G Skills and Tools

• §Recognizing where you are
• Skills and tools sampler with exercises

Wrap Up

Audience

Anyone who has anything to do with architecture projects! We are hoping that the various roles, including architects, architecture program managers, CIOs and other strategic managers, business analysts, etc., will all be well represented.

Course Content

The first part of this seminar sets the context for our discussion of what it means to "lead, follow and get out of the way." First, we look to stellar architects to see what we can learn from them. Then we look at the roles that architects, architecture program managers and others play in architecture projects, and their related responsibilities and skills. With that context set, we look at why it is important to lead, follow, or get out of the way (L/F/G), and when to do so. We consider what it means to do this well, and what it means to do so poorly. Lastly, we will learn about skills that will help us do better at leading, following or getting out of the way--whatever is appropriate to our current situation. These course sections are discussed further below.

Learning from Great Architects

Two of the most vivid ways of learning is by analogy and from experience. We will share stories of great architects--of organizations, systems, and software. These stories are quite entertaining, but also lend great insight into what it takes to make architecture efforts successful. These lessons will inform the remainder of the day, and you will find yourself drawing on them for years to come.

Objectives: 

• Get everyone engaged
• Learn from experience

Roles and Responsibilities

We will use large-group graphical facilitation to capture an architecture influence map, showing the roles related to architecture. Everyone gets to participate in this exercise. In a brief lecture segment, we will also present models of different ways that architecture efforts are organized. In the next exercise, we will work on a large graphical map of the architecture value delivery process (including the creation and maintenance of the architecture, as well as its influencers and uses). This map will reflect the responsibilities of the different players identified in the roles exercise that precedes it. We will return to lecture mode to cover our architecting process at a summary level.

Objective: 

• Create a model of roles and process that we can refer to in considering when to L/F/G and the appropriate L/F/G behaviors for different roles at different times in the process

L/F/G Framework

We will introduce some models for thinking about the importance of leading, following and getting out of the way, as appropriate to one's role and process context. Again, using group graphics to enhance participation, we will work on identifying behaviors associated with good versus bad leading, following and getting out of the way.

Objective: 

• Create a perceptual shift in how we think about architecture projects and our role in making them succeed or fail

L/F/G Skills and Tools

In this last section, we will introduce skills and tools that will enhance your effectiveness at L/F/G. Even though this section only contains a sampler of the skills and tools that will ultimately make you most successful, there are still too many to practice in just one day.  We will pick a few key skills to be practiced in exercises, and others will be covered lecture-style.  

Tools to enable L/F/G

• creating an operating model, including
  - decision responsibility matrix
  - guiding principles
  - charter
• creating a communication plan
• tailoring the architecting process
• creating an ITA reference web site

Skills to enable L/F/G

• •building and maintaining rapport
• •giving and receiving feedback

Leadership skills

• creating a vision
• telling stories

Skills for good Followers

• •communication game

Objective: 

• Provide an overview of the kinds of skills and tools that help in L/F/G
• Learn some key skills by having the opportunity to practice them

Information
Bill Branson is director of information technology architecture at the Frank Russell Co., where he provides leadership and direction to the company in the areas of information technology architecture, technology strategy and emerging technology and trends. He has extensive work experience in both the vendor and end user companies in positions such as technical marketing and support, systems programming, network engineering and application development. Bill also teaches networking courses at the University of Washington in Seattle and Bellevue.

Information
Dana Bredemeyer has over 20 years' experience architecting, designing and developing software systems, including 16 years with Hewlett-Packard. He pioneered Hewlett-Packard's internal software architecture consulting and education program. He has provided architecture consulting and training to architects, architecture teams and their management at the project, organization and business unit levels, and has helped teams develop software, firmware and system architectures for products, product families and information systems. Dana is currently co-authoring a book on software architecture for Prentice-Hall.

References

Bredemeyer, Dana and Ruth Malan. "Role of the Software Architect", http://www.bredemeyer.com/pdf_files/role.pdf, 1999.

Kruchten, Philippe, "The Architects: The Software Architecture Team", Proceedings of the First Working IFIP Conference on Software Architecture, February 1999.

Malan, Ruth and Bredemeyer, Dana, Introduction to "How to Lead, How to Follow and how to get Out of the Way" (498Kb), http://www.bredemeyer.com/pdf_files/LFGIntro.pdf, March, 2001.

Rechtin, E. Systems Architecting: Creating and Building Complex Systems. Prentice-Hall, 1991. (especially Ch. 14).

Other Resources

• Role of the Architect Workshop from Bredemeyer Consulting. This unique class explores the role of the architect and associated skills, and participants work through series of exercises to practice new skills and techniques that will help them in the architect role. San Diego, April 2001
• We also offer seminars and workshops like the LFG seminar in-house. Contact us at (812) 335-1653 for more information.