Attracting, retaining and getting the best from your architects

1. Attracting, retaining and getting the best from your architects • Tom Graves, Tetradian Consulting • with xpand Melbourne / Sydney, October 2015

2. Hi. I’m Tom Graves. (enterprise-architect, business-anarchist, confusionist, nuisance, that kind of stuff…)

3. “What’s the story?” What do architects do?

4. Where is architecture? Building-blocks of a generic built-structure CC-BY Tom Graves

5. Where is architecture? ContactCustomer Manage the Business FulfilOrders Accept Orders ProcessOrders DeliverOrders Support the Business Building-blocks of a generic business-structure

6. analysts (within the boxes) Where is architecture? ContactCustomer Manage the Business FulfilOrders Accept Orders ProcessOrders DeliverOrders Support the Business architects (between the boxes) The architecture is in the ‘between-spaces’

7. Who are the architects? Solution architects (connect everything together within a project) design-solutions will be neededwherever there’s some kind of change going on… - project, programme, portfolio, transformation - …and wherever a solution is being developed,we’ll need a solution-architect

8. Who are the architects? Domain architects (connect everything across a discipline or domain) these include: infrastructure-architect,data-architect, applications-architect,business-architect, security-architect,financial-architect, facilities-architect,brand-architect, organisation-architect,process-architect, skills/training architect,governance-architect, and many more

9. Who are the architects? Enterprise architects (connect everything together) that ‘everything’ will include: IT-infrastructure, data, applications, non-IT technologies, business-models, security, financials, facilities, brands, organisation-structures, processes, interactions, skills/training, governance, quality, environment, health-and-safety… - every distinct domain, and much, much more

10. The EA Mantra(phrases that you’ll often hear architects say…) “I don’t know…” “(but I know how to find out)” “It depends…” “(and I know what it depends on)” “Just enough detail…” “(and I know the level of detail that it needs)”

11. The expectation? • “You don’t want your strategies following spaghetti roads- you want them movingthrough your companyon logical, straight highways.” (well-known large consultancy)

12. The expectation? • “The enterprise architecture transition plan is a simple artifact.” “It consists of a set of: - Gantt charts - transformative investments - planning time-horizons (in years) - SDLC phases - descriptive narrative” (well-known EA consultant)

13. The reality… Yeah, it’s messy… - always…

14. Work with the uncertainty… (Architects must connect across the whole context-space)

15. Ultimately, architecture iseveryone’s responsibility (Architects just help it along a bit…)

16. Architecture matters: Without architecture as anchor, what we’d get is a random mix of POSIWID: …it’s Not A Good Idea… “the purpose of the system is [expressed in] what it does”

17. “What’s the story?” What value doarchitects deliver?

18. The aim of all architecture: things work betterwhen they work togetheron purpose

19. Things – what things? and who decides? • Work – what work? in what sense of ‘work’? • Better – ‘better’ for what? or who? in what sense? who decides? • Together – what kind of ‘together’?how? why? where? • On purpose – who chooses the purpose?for what? for whom? and why? …which implies further questions: - architecture within architecture…

20. …so, for enterprise-architecture: what things? short answer: everything! • that’s the whole point! • (and yes, a whole lot broader than just IT alone…)

21. For example, digital transformation is not just about changing from one type of computer… CC-BY-SA MysteryBee via Flickr

22. to another computer… CC-BY Highways Agency via Flickr

23. ‘Going digital’ transforms the scope Inside-in: Fixing-up within one department (TOGAF 8)

24. ‘Going digital’ transforms the scope Inside-out: It’s all about our own organisation (TOGAF 9)

25. ‘Going digital’ transforms the scope Outside-in: Interacting with the customer and their needs

26. ‘Going digital’ transforms the scope Outside-out: A much broader world of stakeholders out there

27. …even more, from user-as-robot… CC-BY justinpickard via Flickr

28. …to personas person! CC-BY andré luís via Flickr

29. Skillsets across the whole space… Distinct modes: Simple, Complicated, Ambiguous, Not-known

30. Skillsets across the whole space… Agent, analyst, alchemist, anarchist, in business context…

31. Skillsets across the whole space… Maintaining balance: business-analyst, business-anarchist

32. The value of architecture… is in how welleverything works togetherwith everything elseon purpose across the whole enterprise (yet we can often only see this happeningwhen viewed across the whole enterprise…)

33. “What’s the story?” How do we attractgood architects?

34. The easy way out? - the big-consultancy pitch: “We will do your architecture for you!” Don’t do this! Almost invariably, it results inexpensively-useless shelfware…

35. Don’t outsourceyour architecture!

36. Architecture is everyone’s responsibility - hence it can only be done in-house. In-house architects assist in and remind everyone of that responsibility. Use external consultantsto help build architecture-maturity and architecture-skills and competence - not to ‘do the architecture’.

37. Next task… Find, maintain and nurture those in-house architects. (which may not be as simple as we might expect…)

38. How do we find our architects? CC-BY GreaterGrandIsland via Flickr

39. Architecture is a mindset more than a job-title… Good candidates for architecture might be found anywhere in and beyond the organisation… …but current recruitment-models can make it very hard to find them…

40. Most certification schemes are meaningless for this… They test ability to repeat rote-learning – almost exactly what we don’t need. Knowledge of shared-terminology is useful,but trivial to acquire…

41. Skill-level of ‘TOGAF Certified’ A five-day course does not an architect make…

42. Lazy recruiters use certification schemes as a tick-the-box filter… Result: a five-day course gets higher priority than 20 years of experience? Sheer madness – somehow we must bring these ‘certification-scams’ to a close…

43. Key characteristics of architects: a) could be anywhere, in any job b) are cross-disciplinary generalists c) skillset and experience will often combine technical, arts, humanities, across multiple industries

44. Most current recruitment would: a) fail to see most of them b) ignore them if they appear c) actively penalise them Not exactly helpful for anyone’s needs…

45. And we need those eccentrics… …they’re the ones who provide the leverage to help things change CC-BY-SA Kurayba via Flickr

46. - notice things (are interested in everything) Look for people who: - are interested in how things fit together - have diverse careers (across many industries) - connect with people (across broader scope) - translate between multiple domains - explain and simplify (yet not to simplistic) - resolve the EA mantra (via action and story)

47. For each of the EA Mantra elements - “I don’t know…” - “It depends…” - “Just enough detail…” The answer’s a story… - the ‘wannabe’ will give the stock answer - the natural-architect will give a personal story ora personal example

48. “What’s the story?” How do you retaingood architects?

49. Motivations… …why would anyonewant to be an architectin your enterprise?

50. Pay-levels are important, but… CC-BY quaziefoto via Flickr