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Architect(ure) as Enabler of
Organization’s Sustainable
Flow of Change
Eduardo da Silva, PhD (esilva.net | @emgsilva | [email protected])
Kandddinsky 2022, 31/10/2022
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Inspired by: Reflections: Sociotechnical Systems Design and Organization Change
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Cope with this by stretching social
systems => which leads to messy
social and technical systems…
Inspired by: Reflections: Sociotechnical Systems Design and Organization Change
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Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash
Leading to continuous “fight” against the environment
(external & internal)
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🏢 These old org structures don’t cut it anymore…they
limit the dynamics & velocity that modern orgs need for
people to do their best (Knowledge) work
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Photo by Cole Patrick on Unsplash
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◌ Acknowledge that orgs are “Open System” -
continuously affected by their environment, and
affecting it back
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Photo by Ronaldo de Oliveira on Unsplash
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💡Creating structure that allow org to respond to
changes in the environment, and to learn & adapt as
needed! (sustainable flow of change)
Photo by Ronaldo de Oliveira on Unsplash
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SocioTechnical Systems Design & Evolution - Model
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Sociotechnical Systems Evolution & Architecture, Eduardo da Silva
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“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”
–Grady Booch
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[sociotechnical]
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TL;DR: Approaches to
architecture in
teams. There are
different forms &
they change in time.
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Architecture Topologies & Architecture as Enabling Team, Eduardo da Silva
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A model for organizing architects & Architecture*
Model to
approach
Architecture in
teams.
Originally
introduced in
Stefan Toth’s
book on software
architecture
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*Would you like architects with your architecture? | images credits: Gregor Hohpe
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Evolution Pattern: Shift Right
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● Typical progression in most orgs (need time to evolve)
● Progression depends on “architectural & team/org maturity”
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Evolution Pattern: Bounce Back
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● May happen if teams have issues approaching architecture
● Focus should be: create conditions to get back to model #2
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Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
❓What about Architecture & Decisions across teams
and the organization?
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Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
⚠ org is a network of teams and scopes. Looking at
“team scope” architecture in isolation is not enough!
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Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
⚙ common Reductionist Approach: Overfocus on just
“Team Autonomy”… forgetting teams exist in a network
that form the organization
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Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
💡 Alternative framing: embrace org as a complex
adaptive system, which is defined by all its teams and
their interactions ➡ “Purposeful Autonomy”
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“A system is more than the
sum of its parts… It loses
its essential properties
when it is taken apart…“
Russell Ackoff
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On Systems Thinking, Russell Ackoff
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Scopes of Architecture & Leadership across the Org
credits: Technical Leadership, Ruth Malan
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How can we model those different scopes in an
organization?
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Example: Product-centric Organization
● Team scope is just one
scope, a sub-system in a
Product scope
● Product Group scope tends
to be a way to scale
related product (scopes)
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Product Taxonomy, Ross Clanton, Amy Walters, Jason Zubrick, Pat Birkeland, Mik Kersten, Alan Nance, and Anders Wallgren
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Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
🎯 enable architecture across all the organizations
“Scopes” so that the overall system (org and its products)
can best achieve its purpose & goals
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● Focus on “product” scope &
its sub-scopes (teams)
● These ideas can be similarly
applied to other scopes (to
scale, align purpose &
decision making in the whole
org)
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0: No Architect(ure)
(❌“Implicit” Architecture)
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Photo by Martijn Baudoin on Unsplash
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Architect Elevator
“In addition to making technical
decisions, architects can help change
the organization's structure and
processes to support this transition.”
Connect-dots: “...architects need to
take the express elevator from the
engine room to the penthouse, where
business strategy resides.”
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1: Scope Architect & Team Scope Boundaries
(❗“Architect decides, team executes”)
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Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
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2: Scope Enabling Architect & Teams Architects
(✅“Architect in surrounding scope”+“Architect in team”)
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Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash
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The Advice Process
https://martinfowler.com/articles/scaling-architecture-conversationally.html
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Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally, Andrew Harmel-Law
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Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally, Andrew Harmel-Law
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Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally, Andrew Harmel-Law
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Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally, Andrew Harmel-Law
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Inspired on:
Reinventing
Organizations book,
by Frederic Laloux
Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally, Andrew Harmel-Law
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Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally, Andrew Harmel-Law
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“What worries you about the Advice Process?”
Credits: DDD EU
2022 Keynote,
Andrew
Harmel-Law, Diana
Montalion, Mike
Rozinsky,
Gayathri
Thiyagarajan and
Dan Young
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“How confident are you in the advice process?”
Credits: DDD EU
2022 Keynote,
Andrew
Harmel-Law, Diana
Montalion, Mike
Rozinsky,
Gayathri
Thiyagarajan and
Dan Young
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“An idea to make us more confident in this process”
Credits: DDD EU
2022 Keynote,
Andrew
Harmel-Law, Diana
Montalion, Mike
Rozinsky,
Gayathri
Thiyagarajan and
Dan Young
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3: Anybody Architecture
(✅✅Architecture without (almost no) Architects)
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Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
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Thank you!
Eduardo da Silva, PhD
Independent consultant on enabling sociotech leadership & systems evolution
# @emgsilva | esilva.net | [email protected]
Architecture Topologies: github.com/emgsilva/architecture-topologies
💡 “companion article” of this talk coming soon on esilva.net
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📚 References
● Architecture Topologies & Architecture as Enabling Team, Eduardo da Silva
● Would you like architects with your architecture?, Gregor Hohpe
● Less is More with Minimalist Architecture, Ruth Malan and Dana Bredemeyer
● Team Topologies, Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais
● Sociotechnical Systems Evolution & Architecture, Eduardo da Silva
● On Systems Thinking, Russell Ackoff (analysis by Eduardo da Silva)
● Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally, Andrew Harmel-Law
● Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux
● Advice Process Playbook, Equal Experts Consulting
● Accelerate, Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
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