http://traceinthesand.com/blog Musing about architecture, architecting and architects Sun, 28 Nov 2010 16:48:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Our "The Art of Change: Fractal and Emergent" Executive Report covers a model of change, showing how the vectors of change are different at different points in the lifecycle, so that agility means different things, depending on where in the lifecycle the product-market is a discussion of how the meaning of business ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2010/11/28/the-art-of-change-fractal-and-emergent/ You've probably read Getting to Yes and heard of Getting Past No, so why Getting Past "But"? Well, because "but..." is insidious, making it harder to get past than an outright "no." The person who says "yes, but..." is ostensibly aligning with you. Ostensibly agreeing but for this teensy caveat—this ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2009/01/14/why-getting-past-but-is-important/ Our Getting Past "But..." executive report covers two essential areas: innovation, the circles of innovation model, the innovation process, and what all this means for architects. scaling agile development projects with VAP (emphasizing just enough design upfront or JEDUF). These map roughly to the first and second halves of the report, ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2008/12/17/scaling-agile-with-vap-getting-past-but/ The Wikipedia community describes Conway's Law like this; I paraphrase it like this: if the architecture of the system and the architecture of the organization are at odds, the architecture of the organization wins. The organizational divides are going to drive the true seams in the system. The architecture of the ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2008/02/13/conways-law/ Have you read The Goal? It is (still) a pivotal book in the Lean movement. I’ve been telling architects that The Wheel on the School (a children’s story by Meindert deJong) is the hidden jewel of that genre—namely novelization of business fundamentals. I believe it could be a pivotal book ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2007/09/28/elementary-lessons-in-vision-and-teaming/ If you're interested in Agile and Architecture, here's an interesting read, including the comments: The Demise of the Gantt Chart in Agile Software Projects, by Tate Stuntz on July 31, 2007. I have to agree with David Christiansen: "I’m not convinced there is such a thing as a methodology or ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2007/09/18/architecture-and-the-agile-quest/ The Agile Manifesto articulates the following core values: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan In essence, informal, iterative, adaptive processes that rely on the collaboration of empowered individuals are strongly favored over formal, bureacratic process and its accoutrements (plans, contracts, comprehensive documentation).  If we ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2007/09/08/agile-architecting/ I get challenged on the question of vision. Is it management's responsibility to come up with the vision, or the architect's? Well, this is my push-back: the architect needs to be sure there is one. Remember: no vision, no destination, a random walk. If management has established a shared vision, and ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2006/10/25/that-vision-thing/ I have learned what I know about good architecture from working with good architects, many of whom have set the bar for excellence in architecture documentation. That said, I am too often caused to lament that the only thing harder than getting engineers to read the architecture documentation is getting architects to ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2006/08/25/architecture-documentation-courage-to-fly-in-the-face-of-convention/ Corporate and product identity is important in helping customers narrow options and make choices in a flooded marketplace (Malan and Bredemeyer, June 2005).  Identity is a market simplifier. And it means that we have to think about markets and marketing differently. Take the iPod. It is all about identity. The ... http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2006/07/05/opening-up-the-innovation-engine/