Solution Architecture - Basic Principles

As I have written in my earlier blog post Solution Architect – Understanding the Role, the Solution Architecture practice area demands a wider knowledge in business and technical areas. The solution Architects need to be jack of all trades rather than being the master of a specific area. The Solution Architects should be able to bridge the gaps that the business users have on technical space and those that the technical teams have on the business areas.


Architecting a good solution is always challenging as the context and the technology keeps changing too fast over time. A solution which was perfect in a time frame may not be so after a time period. Given that each of the non-functional quality attributes might adversely affect one or more other non-functional quality attributes, the Solution Architects should be able to do the balancing act on these attributes in line with the business needs and other factors that could be foreseen in the near and longer term.


Here are some of the basic principles, which when practiced, would help a solution architect to deliver a good solution.


Business Drives Information Technology

Just in case, if one has the expertise in IT, then it is important to take off that hat and wear the business hat while architecting solutions. Business does not mind which technology or tools that would be in use, but they want their business problems solved with reasonable longevity and other non-functional requirements. Ignoring or undermining business expectations or priorities could lead to building a solution with excessive engineering or technical complexity, and could result in higher cost and delays.


Just Enough Architecture, Just in Time

Let the solutions evolve based on business priorities. It would be ideal to take one business problems at a time based on its priority and architect the solution keeping in mind the first principle and factoring the ability to change and scale in response to the business needs. This will help the businesses get the solutions faster and in increments. This will also help the Architects adopt agile methods and ensure timely responses to business changes as mostly needed.


Common Business Solutions

There is a tendency for departments to go in for solutions on their own as they have their own budgets to spend. This many times leads to a situation where multiple solutions being in use for the same problem domain within various departments. It is a must for architects to have a complete view of the problems and solutions within the enterprise and the solutions architected should be common and usable across multiple departments. If need be, the existing solution can be enhanced to meet the changing requirements of different department. This principle when practiced will facilitate easy maintenance and will ensure better data governance.


Conform to Data Governance principles

Data and information is used for decision making at various levels and it is important that the data is organized and maintained at the highest possible quality level. The need to understand the sensitivity levels of the data within and across departments and partner systems is also equally important while architecting the solution. With big data era emerging, organizations are looking at handling petabytes of structured and unstructured data to be managed. It is imperative to have the Data Governance policies and processes in place and the Solution Architecture team should ensure that the solutions are in compliance with it.


Comply with Information Security Framework

Similar to the Data Governance policies, the organization should have Information Security policies and related framework in place and the Solution Architecture team should ensure that the solutions are in conformance with it. Security must be designed into the solutions from the inception and adding it later could result in higher cost and delays. This however is dependent on the organization’s business context and its risk appetite.


Also read the following other blog posts on Architecture Review - Scalability

Taking over - stay away from wrong battles

 If you are about to take up a Senior Managerial role in an different organization, it is important that you are able to settle down at the right pace and pick up the right battle to make a mark in the first few weeks of taking over. While it is true that the management has through multiple rounds of discussions have tried their best to understand your abilities and have got convinced that you are the person to take the organization further down the roadmap, there could be challenges which you would not have faced before and you should take little care about few things like the following.

The takeover session

 

 

Usually, you might have a chance to have few rounds of discussions with your predecessor as part of the handing over process. It is important to use this very effectively. Among other things, the important items to pick up in this session are 

• Get to know why your predecessor is leaving, and this would help you to plan and carefully handle such pain areas so that you also don’t end up getting into a battle.
• Get to know from your predecessor as to his opinions about people, process and technology in the organization and this would give you certain handles to pick up and carry on with.
• Get to know as to what he has been upto in the past three to six months period so that to understand his unfinished initiatives and if certain initiatives failed why so. This will help you to understand the various constraints with which he has been operating and most likely those constraints would hold on for you too to deal with.
• Get to know about the strategy, vision and goals of the organization and the roadmap to achieve those. It might be possible for you to identify certain areas to work on, but again don’t jump into action plans you need to get 360 degree view of the issues.

 

 

Just in case, you don’t have this opportunity of a smooth hand over, try to get same inputs from the next level executives, but use such inputs with care as you might want to validate the same from few other sources.

 

 

The Cultural Values

 

 

Each organization has its own culture that suits the most for the teams and the business. As part of your taking over, it is important that you understand he organizational culture, the morale of the employees and if required you may spend little more time to make yourself a fit into the prevalent culture and gain the confidence of the teams. While there is a chance that the given culture could be the cause of certain pain points and may need a change, you may not want to pick up such battles so soon as it could lead to the teams not accepting you as a leader. As you might have come with a different cultural background, it is so easy for you to get carried away and make missteps.

 

 

Spot the problem areas and the pain points

 

 

While you would have got to know some of the priority areas that need immediate attention, before jumping into action, spend more time to talk to various teams to understand completely as to the current state of various projects and initiatives that they are upto. Depending on your approach, style and your experience, you would spot certain pain points that need attention. Capture those for later action. Sooner you identify those it will help you to settle down quickly. It would also be a good idea to spend some time in understanding the failed projects or initiatives in the recent times, which would help you pick up certain process areas to revisit and work on. You might have to use your tactical and people skills here so that the teams open up to you freely and you get a good handle of the areas to work on.

 

 

Perform a careful analysis of these items for their impact on other aspects like, culture, process and technology which will help you to categorize and prioritize these areas and come up with a revised roadmap for the near term and the longer term.

 

 

In the process of settling in, it is very much likely that you will try to use your experience and suggest course correction or jump into actions in the middle, which if not done well could land you into trouble as might start facing resistance from some quarters. Though these could be overcome with authority, it may not work well if you use it early on. In such cases, you should be convincingly demonstrate to such teams that the course correction is much needed given the situation and take them into confidence that way. Picking up wrong battle early on could prove costly.

 

 

As many leaders say, a good leader is a good listener. So listen more early on to get to know the perspective better and try to pick up some lessons. For a while, you should forget your experience and expertise and try to be a learner and keep listening. Once you are done listening, do an alnalysis and in that process, you may use your experience. Keep in mind that there is no single best way to accomplish a thing and there could be multiple ways and means and it could be so that you might have a chance to pick up certain new things that might work well too.

 

 

Please understand that this is not a complete guide for you to just practice blindly. This could be completely out of context in some situations and may not hold good at all. However, what is to be taken out this is that try to stay away from picking wrong battles early on.