The Role of the Architect(ure) in the Digital Product Development

Das Informationszeitalter hat vieles auf den Kopf gestellt, unter anderem auch die Anforderungen an Unternehmen. Um für Kunden relevant zu bleiben, müssen sich diese kontinuierlich neu erfinden. Dieser stetige Wandel hat nicht zuletzt auch Einfluss auf die Software und Systeme sowie die Personen, die diese entwickeln. Eine dabei bedeutende Aufgabe kommt den (Software-)Architekten zu. Der Vortrag geht auf die Besonderheiten der Produktentwicklung in Digitalunternehmen ein.

Ausgehend davon, was dieses Umfeld auszeichnet, wird die Rolle des Softwarearchitekten abgeleitet und zu gängigen Rollendefinitionen sowie anderen Industrien abgegrenzt. Dabei wird auch darauf eingegangen, mit welchen modernen Methoden Unternehmen (und insbesondere die Produktentwicklung) diesen Anforderungen begegnen, warum sie selbst für dieses Umfeld oft nicht weit genug gehen.

Anhand von zwei Praxisbeispielen wird die Theorie auf die Realität angewandt. Dabei wird jeweils auf die spezifischen Problemstellungen, Lösungsansätze sowie die Rolle des/der Architekten in diesem Kontext eingegangen.

Transcript

1. The Role of the Architect(ure) in the Digital Product Development André Neubauer, JAX, 2018
2. “Tech' enthusiast, advocate on modern leadership and opponent of standstill. Shaping tech env' for more than a decade. Love to work at @Misterspex, acting as CTO” @devpg
3. My Journey so far Dream job when I started my professional career : (Software) Architect Professional stations: • data experts (Consulting) • ImmobilienScout24 (Software Engineer) • DPDHL, E-POST (Manager) • Mister Spex (Manager) Target missed? Actually not!
4. What’s an (software) architect(ure)?
5. "The highest level concept of a system in its environment. The architecture of a software system (at a given point in time) is its organization or structure of significant components interacting through interfaces, those components being composed of successively smaller components and interfaces." – IEEE Recommended Practice for Architectural Description, IEEE Std P1471 "In most successful software projects, the expert developers working on that project have a shared understanding of the system design. This shared understanding is called ‘architecture.’ [...] These components are usually composed of smaller components, but the architecture only includes the components and interfaces that are understood by all the developers." – Ralph Johnson "Architecture is about the important stuff. Whatever that is." – Who needs an architect?, by Martin Fowler "Stuff that's hard to change later." – Neal Ford Software Architecture
6. The Role of an Architect (so far) 4 fields of expertise: • Design • Technology • Domain • Methodology Source: Information Technology Architecture Body of Knowledge (ITABoK) Purpose: • Reduce cost of change • Minimize impact • Ensure long-term maintainability • Make it easy to understand
7. Understanding Then and Now
8. Then Industrial age • Mass production • Standardization • Automation (replacement of co-worker by machines) • ...
9. Now Information age • Discontinuous change • Short product life cycles • Continuous price declines • Little customer loyality • Based on knowledge work
10. Discontinuous Change 2005 2013 Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/vatican-square-2005-and-2013-2013-3?IR=T
11. Discontinuous Change Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQB2NjhJHvY
12. Short product cycles I - VII: 39 years I - X: 10 years Source: http://pngimg.com/download/1806 Source: https://pixabay.com/de/iphone-[...]
13. The Fundamental Change
14. • Focus on through-put and time-to-market • Culture of continuous discovery • “Digital Business” • Context: Unknown unkown Discover Optimized Stable Complaint Economy of Speed Economy of Scale • Focus on utilization • Costs advantages via scaled operations with less costs per unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
15. The Known/ Unknown Matrix aka. “The Rumsfeld Matrix” Source: https://medium.com/[...]/known-unknown-matrix
16. The Issue with (Un)known Unknowns! Time/ Continuous discovery Window of opportunity
17. What’s the Answer on the Economy of Speed?
18. What’s the Architectural Answer on the Economy of Speed?
19. Evolving Architecture & Emergent Design Source: https://www.ibm.com/[...]/j-eaed10/
20. Evolving Architecture & Emergent Design evolve: To move in regular procession through a system. [de]: sich entwickeln emergent: emerging; coming into view or into existence; nascent; new. [de]: entstehend
21. Spectrum of Architecture BDUF Cowboy hacking Some DUF EA+ED Waterfall Agile
22. Economy of Speed is about ... • Speed (obviously) • Change • Decision-Making → ?? → EA/ ED → ?? You need to have an answer for that. Business will probably not wait for you!
23. EA/ ED is just not enough! Well then?
24. #2 Examples to Enable Speed and Decision Making
25. Many obstacles • Legacy systems • High dependencies • Cash-cow driven business Challenges • Lot’s of new product ideas ◦ 80-90% (urban legend) 40%* will fail ◦ High costs for integration but also for de-integration #1: Architect(ure) as Organisation Designer * Based on: https://newproductsuccess.org/white-papers/new-product-failure-rates-[...]
26. Use powerful architectural concepts like isolation, interfaces and cohesion also on organisational level • Don‘t mix ideas with core business (turning off something is easier than removing a feature from the core) • One team, one topic aka. focus ;-) • Provide simple environment and data access #1: Architect(ure) as Organisation Designer
27. #1: Bimodel IT “Bimodal IT is getting a lot of focus as CIOs and IT leaders strive to build IT organizations capable of responding to the threats and opportunities of the digital economy, while maintaining and enhancing traditional infrastructure and services… Mode 1 is traditional IT; Mode 2 is agile IT.” Source: https://www.gartner.com/doc/2901217/[...]-bimodalaware-it “Classic” Business • Industrial speed • Stability • Good at conventional processes Digital Business • Digital speed • Agility • Good at innovation
28. #1: Pioneers, Settlers, Town Planners Source: http://blog.gardeviance.org/[...]/on-pioneers-settlers-town-planners-and.html Source: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2012/06/pioneers-settlers-and-town-planners.html
29. #2: (Foresighted) Architecture Alignment Ever got overrun by the business?
30. #2: (Foresighted) Architecture Alignment Possible technical concepts you therefore need to have in place: Personalization, Recommendation, Apps, Skills, A/B testing, IoT, ... Sorry for the buzzwords What the business requests: Cloud, Micro-Service, API, Big Data, ML, AI
31. #2: (Foresighted) Architecture Alignment Most architectural changes require time (for conception, S/CPoC, …)
32. #2: Business Vision and Beyond Time/ Continuous discovery Window of opportunity Understand the future ... … to take the right decisions now Weird but true: In a fast environment you have to take possible future even more into account.
33. Architectus Reloadus*, really? No, but … → Source: https://juristr.com/blog/2015/06/guide-as-in-mountaineering/ * Based on: http://files.catwell.info/[...]-martin-fowler-who-needs-an-architect.pdf
34. #2: The last responsible moment Benefits of deferring the decision Cost of change Sad but true: Too late decisions with pressure on time-to-market often results in legacy software/ systems. Don’t take decision upfront but latest at …
35. Need More Input? Source: https://www.gartner.com/[...]gartner-hype-cycle[...]-2017 Source: https://www.thoughtworks.com/de/radar
36. Anti-Pattern: Going Fast Without Having a Plan Source: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/[...]-am-ber-funktioniert-nicht-mal-was-fertig-schien/20619992.html
37. Long Story Short ... Source: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/17/bd/64/[...].jpg
38. The Digital Architect “A digital architect is a modern business and technology architect that is driven by customer experience to utilize technology to transform business, increase revenue and profitability and improve the competitive position of a business. Digital and quantum architects focus on the synergy and cross discipline integration of the following disciplines: (1) customer experience; (2) cloud, webscale, iot; (3) data science including analytics; (4) business, application, information, technology and security architecture; (5) artificial intelligence, cognitive science, neuroscience, robotics and artificial creativity; (6) traditional science and mathematics including physics, quantum physics, chemistry and biology; and (7) digital 3D printing and nano-manufacturing (source of definition: Gary Trenchard).” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_architect
39. The Role of the Architect(ure) in the Digital Product Development The Architect(ure) plays an even more important role in the Digital Business. • Strong connect with business strategy and vision • Responsible to provide a powerful environment on technical and organizational level • Not only about sustainability anymore but speed and changeability • Not just focussed on technology and operational level • Tactic and strategic architecture management is key