Seven competencies required by architects

Preface

Architects , This profession is in the eyes of most people , Think they're IT Domain omnipotence , Not only have excellent architecture decision-making ability , Also proficient in various mainstream technical fields .

When something goes wrong , They can quickly diagnose faults and solve them , When pushing the project forward , They can accurately control all sources of information .

The enterprise may have higher expectations for architects , Think that they are the key elements that can promote the transformation of the whole scientific and technological culture , It is the core role that can mobilize the integration of various scientific and technological teams .

I don't know in your mind , What is the image of an architect , yes “ Superhero Movie ” still “ The savior ”, But at least from my understanding and understanding of architects in the past two years , They may not be .

Even they are just a career that sounds high-end , It is only deified by most people , This leads to people who don't know about architects , Misunderstood them .

therefore , Let's talk to you today , In my mind , What kind of person is an architect , What are their values , And what basic skills they should have .

Decision-making ability

Architectural decisions , Is to make a decision about the architecture design under uncertainty , Architecture design is the most critical work of architects , So there's no doubt about it , Want to be a good architect , You have to be a good decision maker first .

Architectural decisions are usually made after careful consideration , So in the face of many uncertain factors , Be able to make the best architectural decisions , But some architects make architectural decisions before , Will fall into endless entanglement .

Little imagine , Not only does this not solve the problem quickly , There may even be additional hidden costs , And after a certain moment , These hidden costs will ferment , And cause risks and problems .

Think before you act , Not applicable to any decision , At least not entirely applicable to architectural decisions , For those reversible decisions , Even if you are not sure , The architect should also make a quick decision .

Martin Fowler Such a view has been put forward ：“ One of the most important tasks of architects is to eliminate those irreversible decisions in software design .” You heard me , Architects should devote more energy to determining whether decisions are reversible , If irreversible , By delaying the decision , To buy more time to eliminate it .

Need to know , Architectural decisions sometimes require a race against time . because , Often “ The best time ” Architecture decision ratio “ The best ” The architecture decision of is more valuable .

communication skills

Architectural decisions require the right amount of information , But this information never comes down from the sky , Architects should quickly identify stakeholders who may be affected by architectural decisions , And fully communicate with them to obtain information .

Architects in most traditional enterprises , I often sit in an ivory tower , Draw the exquisite architecture high-order blue chart , In the face of architectural decisions , Just rely on the successful experience of others , Make hasty architectural decisions .

A good architect should throw away the title , Put down your posture , Constantly wandering among the stakeholders , They may be business people , Or R & D personnel , Even top leaders , So as to find clues to assist in architectural decision-making .

Through communication , Architects can fully Insight into the real intentions behind the parties , And from different objective perspectives , Thoroughly analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different architecture decisions to stakeholders .

Through communication , Architects can solve the language barrier between them , At the same time, it also brings some other people's opinions to the other party , and Reawaken the other person's thinking and creativity .

The communication skills of architects are not just simple information transmission and feedback , Its more important function is to generate a connection , This connection can penetrate the barriers set up between different people , And try to help them reach a consensus .

The ability to choose

Rapid architectural decisions are important , But fast doesn't mean blind , Architects still need to decide which aspects are more important or valuable to them today .

Both 、 And 、 And it can only happen in the virtual world , In the real world, they need to choose the big from the small , Enough is enough , So as to make reasonable architectural decisions , And it must reflect the choice ability of architects .

An entry-level architect who has just moved from R & D to architecture , They tend to spend more energy on Technology , because , They insist on advocating superior performance 、 Application system with high robustness .

There is nothing wrong with that , But it should not be blindly pursued , And divorced from reality , They should look at the big picture , And in technology 、 cost 、 Business, etc , In the shortest possible time , Find their equilibrium fulcrum .

Behind architectural decisions is a process of constant trade-offs , The purpose of trade-offs is to make architectural decisions reasonable . thus it can be seen , The importance of trade-offs to architectural decisions .

Trade off ability can also act as a coordinator between communication ability and decision-making ability , So as to realize the limited resources , It can maximize the total interests of interested parties .

cognitive ability

Same information , Different people's understanding may produce different results , It depends on everyone's cognitive ability , This ability can help architects make correct choices and decisions .

Ledario once said ：“ If you think you used to be poor , Explain that after accumulation and continuous iteration , You are better now than you used to be .”

It sounds strange , But this is actually a cognitive improvement , From the first stage of cognition “ I don't know I don't know ” Towards the second stage “ Know you don't know ” A manifestation of .

The shortcut to improve cognitive ability is to learn , But learning is not blind , It needs to be purposeful , for example ： Technical problems encountered 、 Knowledge required for architectural decisions , In this way, learning efficiency and memory effect can be better improved .

With the improvement of architects' cognitive ability , Not only can they face things , See things in their entirety , And look at the problem from a multi-dimensional perspective , It also allows architects to break through their own bottlenecks , Increase the upper limit space .

Architects not only need from “ I don't know I don't know ” towards “ Know you don't know ” Stride forward , And then “ Know that you know ” stride across , To make better architectural decisions .

Practical ability

Architects make decisions , Get stakeholders to agree , And define the work objectives , But their work is just beginning , We also need to observe the results through practice , To verify that the architectural decisions are correct .

Architects in many enterprises have been given the right to make architectural decisions , They are only responsible for making decisions , Not responsible for or assisting the implementation of the production research team . This anti pattern of power but no responsibility does not advocate .

Architects need to take responsibility for architectural decisions , They need to ensure that current actions are consistent with current decisions , Always consistent , Otherwise, the results may be far from expected , It will even affect the effectiveness of subsequent decisions .

Architects need to constantly observe the impact of practice , thus Continually validate architectural decisions , Discover problems in time , Adjust the direction as soon as possible , Avoid more losses , To form a virtuous circle .

Need to know , The most outstanding architect in the world , It can only try to ensure the correctness of most architectural decisions , But there is no guarantee that it will always be right .

Architects are not omniscient “ Prophet ”, But they can reduce the probability of architecture decision failure through continuous practice . Practice is the only test of truth .

Missionary ability

Successful experience of architecture practice , Will be a kind of wealth or asset , It should not be sealed as a family heirloom , They should be passed down , Thus reducing the risk of architectural decisions in the enterprise .

therefore , A good architect is not just a good decision maker , They should also change their identity all the time , Act as a qualified coach or preacher .

Openness and sharing are the basic means for architects to preach , Internally, they can issue guidelines that apply internally , And conduct training courses , On the outside , They can publish academic papers , And academic exchanges with the same industry .

Evangelism can also increase the influence of architects , Increase trust in architects , Make communication before architectural decisions more effective , Increase the recognition of architects by others , Make the conclusion after the architecture decision more convincing .

The success of an architect is not uncommon , The wonder is how we can make people around us succeed together , After all Achieving others is the best way to achieve yourself .

therefore , How architects can improve the architectural capabilities of those around them , Will be one of their biggest challenges , otherwise , One day I will become a bottleneck .

Summarizing ability

Summing up these two words may not be unfamiliar to you , From reading when I was young to working when I grew up , May be asked to write a summary more or less , It can be a study summary or a work summary .

However, the summary does not describe the work of the past six months or one year in turn , Such content is not only lengthy and pointless , And lack of analysis and thinking , It will become worthless .

Architects need to self drive to summarize the practice after each architectural decision in the past , They need to summarize , Constantly reflect on , Continuous improvement .

Architects not only need to summarize success stories , Precipitation methodology , Apply to future architectural decisions , It is more necessary to summarize the failure cases , Look for deficiencies , span an interval , Enhance cognition to improve the decision-making ability of architecture .

You can find , The reader of the summary is not others , But myself , It will become the most powerful core weapon for architects , It will also become the best way for architects to grow .

But the ability to summarize is not innate , Architects need to consciously and deliberately practice , This is one of the reasons why I output articles , It can keep me moving forward .

At the end

This article is based on my current understanding of architects , There are seven basic abilities necessary for an architect , A brief explanation is given , It may not be completely , But none of them is missing .

The seven basic abilities complement each other , In order to facilitate readers to systematically understand the role between them , I have also drawn the following basic capability diagram for your reference .

I hope this article will be helpful to you who are just becoming architects or are about to become architects . I also hope that I can continue to insist , It's hard to do the right thing .