Architecture is an unavoidable element of any tech-enabled organization. As Grady Booch says: "every software-intensive system has an architecture. In some cases that architecture is intentional, while in others it is accidental. Most of the times it is both". Furthermore, organizations are complex sociotechnical systems: teams ("Who) that listen and respond to "What" their environment and customers need by building tech-enabled products ("How")). These elements are continuously changing, so we must evolve and adapt how we approach architecture in our teams and across the organization. This is particularly important in modern product organizations that want to support a sustainable "fast flow of change" to respond continuously to their customers and environment.
In this talk, I motivate the need to embrace this evolutionary approach to architecture, i.e., continuously evolve its "architecture topology" (https://esilva.net/tla_insights/architecture-topologies). To provide a robust formulation, I describe the organization as a network of related scopes (e.g., Teams, Products, Product Groups, Portfolios, etc.). These scopes scale the organization and its ability to evolve sustainably. Architecture happens in all these scopes and across them.
During the talk, I explore multiple architecture topologies and elements that evolve and mature them, for example: how to position architects and/or people doing architecture, how it enables decision-making, how it supports learning & flow of change, etc. I also discuss challenges typically found in each architecture topology (which tend to be the bottlenecks we must address by evolving to another topology). Then, I share strategies we can use to evolve the architecture topology. For example, team topologies, developing a culture of trust, architecture as enabling team, coaching & support architects transitioning, advice process, etc. Per architecture topology, I also share first-hand real-world examples, particularly ones I have seen over the last five years working as Principal Tech Lead at bol.com (an organization that went through hyper-growth and required several evolutions of its architecture topology).
I end this talk by emphasizing the need to embrace the continuous evolution of our organizations, as their environments are also continuously changing. As such, our approaches and practices to architecture must also evolve. For this to happen, we must strive to shape structures that allow this evolution, namely a culture of trust and safety and one that embraces that the organization is an open system.
ℹ️ For more info, check: https://esilva.net
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