Modern architectural work: from defining to enabling

Many large organizations are still working with centralized architecture related teams. Their role is often to provide architectural specifications to other teams and to ensure that these specifications are adhered to during implementation. These teams are often referred to as „ivory tower architecture“ teams, which aim at bundling high skilled architects. This role is certainly not available in abundance on the market.

However, they don’t scale in an agile environment in which we want to empower teams to make their own decisions. Certain guardrails are nevertheless necessary to ensure that the overall construct is functional. Furthermore, well-chosen guard rails can also drastically reduce the need for coordination between the teams.

We need to enable those teams to do most of the architectural work on their own while still making sure that the bits and pieces fit together. This is where Team Topologies, a methodology introduced by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, come into play. There is one team type called „Enabling Team“.

This talk gives you a hands-on guidance how to transform a centralized architecture team towards an enabling team whose job it is to improve architectural work in other teams. You will learn:
- Which stakeholders to include in this journey
- Why the soon-to-be enabling team needs to be enabled as well and how to do that
- Where common pitfalls on this journey are
- Why this journey must be done in an agile manner with continuous learning and retrospectives

This talk will also include many examples from practical experience guiding such a transformation.

Transcript

1. Modern architectural work: From de f ining to enabling MICHAEL PLÖD FELLOW
2. 2 Let me tell you a story of a company…
4. The Software Delivery Teams….
5. They implement software based on requirements from the business based on architectural decisions from the architecture team based on timelines from the management monolithic with an aged tech stack
6. The teams are not empowered at all. They are among the most downstream teams in the org.
7. The Architecture Team
8. 8 The role “software architect“
9. 9 Tasks Involvement in all phases and life stages of a software system Clarify requirements Communicate architecture Design structures Design crosscutting concepts Support implementation Evaluate architecture Amount of work + order depends on the system!
10. Working on architectural tasks Inspired by a model by Stefan Toth / Gregor Hohpe
11. Division of work Classic: Architect decides what the team has to do Architect Development Team
12. Division of work No one is responsible: Implicit architecture (emergent, democratic) Development Team
13. Division of work Architects as agents: Architecture topics explicitly distributed in the team Development Team
14. Division of work Architect in the team: supports team with architecture tasks Architect Developers Development Team
15. You have to implement things our way
16. Division of work Classic: Architect decides what the team has to do Architect Development Team 16
17. How the Architecture Team sees itself
18. The Boss
19. Wants a shift in strategy and delivery from economies of scale towards economies of speed
20. You are now agile cross-functional teams and take full end-to-end responsibility from now on.
21. 😱 🤪 🤯 🧐 🤡 🥵 🥴
22. The outside voice
23. Tell me more They have a valid point They should be excited, isn’t responsibility and in f luence motivating?
24. Mind the COGNITIVE LOAD of the teams. We need to make sure that teams aren’t overwhelmed Learning and mastering domain complexity Conducting experiments / Learning Delivering high value software
25. Let me assume that you want motivated teams… OF COURSE!
26. Autonomy Mastery Purpose
27. We need an environment in which teams can reach Autonomy Mastery Purpose
28. Architecture Team Development Team We are currently here
29. Understood, and I need to get my teams to one of these environments Development Team Architect Developers Development Team
30. Do the architecture stuff on your own and take responsibility for it You can’t just say
31. Meanwhile the Architecture Team Do we get f ired? Aren’t we needed anymore? Aren’t we important anymore? What about us?
32. There is an idea for you folks
33. Fundamental Team Topologies Complicated Subsystem Enabling Platform Stream-aligned
34. Complicated Subsystem Team • Responsible for building and maintaining a part of the system that is highly dependent on specialist expertise • Team manages the complexity of the subsystem using speci f ic skills and expertise that are usually dif f icult to f ind or recruit. Enabling Team • Work alongside the stream-aligned teams and support them in the area of knowledge building and empowerment. • Have a strong collaborative nature and strive to understand the problems and shortcomings of the other teams • Inhouse consulting team Platform Team • Should give stream-aligned teams the possibility to do their work with a high degree of autonomy, • Platform provides self-service APIs, tools and services as an internal product Stream-aligned Team • Tailored to a business area or organizational capability (Bounded Context) • Is intended to create customer value quickly, safely and autonomously without having to delegate parts of the work to other teams.
35. How about an ARCHITECTURE ENABLING TEAM
36. Key goals & tasks for architecture enablement Gradually shift architecture work into teams Design Documentation Requirments clari f ication Evaluation Get obsolete over time (OPTIONAL) After some time the teams should be able to do the architecture work on their own. Architects move into the teams. Pair Programming Challenging Moderation Education Protection Standardization Working in Mob Facilitation
37. Need to be coaches, mentors, sparring partners and not an hierarchical instance. Architecture Enablers
38. AMAZING IDEA!!! This is exactly what we need
39. Meanwhile the architects… How to do that? That’s not part of my job description Do we loose power? How about my career? Aren’t we the specialists and not the teams
40. Does everything have to be complicated here? This takes time and patience, let’s take a step-by-step approach
41. Step 1 Enable the future enablers
42. Enabling future enablers Working in mobs with experienced coaches Dedicated training courses and personal development plans Allow them to fail Take their concerns seriously
43. Place that team in a safety bubble f irst and adjust your expectations in terms of speed of adoption Let’s bring in the personal development department they can help
44. Personal Development Establish training curriculums and coaching offers Work with architects and developers May have an eye on the overall transformation
45. COACHING TRAINING CAREER PATHS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
46. Step 2 The f irst small steps
47. Let’s get started.. Don’t worry, I got your back E N A B L I N G
48. Don’t worry, I got your back as well
49. Goal: gain experience Do stuff, succeed, fail, learn, do stuff, repeat.
50. The workers council appears… We have a few questions
51. What is going on here? We also increase collaboration and decrease orders to others We are improving peoples work. They get more autonomy and freedom
52. This isn’t that easy. We oppose this idea due to the current salary system 😳 🫣
53. Let’s take a look at the salary bands 😳 🫣
54. The salary bands Software Architect Level 1 60 - 80k EUR Software Architect Level 2 75 - 95k EUR Software Architect Level 3 90 - 120k EUR •Leads team of architects •Responsible for overall architecture •Gives architectural instructions to other teams •Responsible for those instructions •Designs architectures being reviewed by senior folks
55. You have to address this Software Architect Level 1 60 - 80k EUR Software Architect Level 2 75 - 95k EUR Software Architect Level 3 90 - 120k EUR •Leads team of architects •Responsible for overall architecture •Gives architectural instructions to other teams •Responsible for those instructions •Designs architectures being reviewed by senior folks
56. The current state prevents architects from progressing in the salary / career system 🫣 This is also affects the domain experts in the context of collaborative modeling 😳
57. We need to bring in HR We need to bring in HR
58. HR Contracts Salaries Legal stuff
59. Step 3 Work as an enabling team
60. Now you are in charge! E N A B L I N G
61. We are pretty good at architecture now, it’s no longer a burden on our cognitive load
62. Step 4 OPTIONAL Dissolve & Merge
63. OPTIONAL Goal: dissolve of the enabling team But please: don’t f ire anyone, those folks are super valuable in Stream- aligned Teams or in Platform Teams
64. Let’s summarize stakeholders
65. Developers in Stream-aligned Teams Move architecture work to their team Create environment of psychological safety in terms of decision making Mind their cognitive load
66. Architects in Enabling Team Move from instructing to coaching Need to be enabled as well Mind and address their fears. Psychological safety is important here as well
67. Senior Management Set and manage expectations Readjust career paths Leaders of cultural change
68. Personal Development Establish training curriculums and coaching offers Work with architects and developers May have an eye on the overall transformation
69. HR Readjust salary bands Review career paths Maybe: update contract
70. Workers Council Important for psychological safety Protection for the employees Must be on board
71. What’s up with this person? Food for thought: How about a Management Enabling Team for the journey?
72. www.innoq.com THANK YOU! Michael Plöd Connect on LinkedIn