The Software Architect Elevator

Foreword by Simon Brown
Foreword by David Knott
About This Book
A Chief Architect’s Life: It’s Not That Lonely at the Top
What Will I Learn?
Is It Proven to Work?
Tell Me a Story
Conventions Used in This Book
Staying Up-to-Date
O’Reilly Online Learning
How to Contact Us
Acknowledgments
I. Architects
What Architects Are Not
Many Kinds of Architects
Architects Deal with Nonrequirements
Measuring an Architect’s Value
Architects as Change Agents
1. The Architect Elevator
The Architect Elevator
Some Organizations Have More Floors Than Others
Not a One-Way Street
High-Speed Elevators
Other Passengers
The Dangers of Riding the Elevator
Flattening the Building
2. Movie-Star Architects
The Matrix: The Master Planner
Edward Scissorhands: The Gardener
Vanishing Point: The Guide
The Wizard of Oz
Superhero? Superglue!
Making the Call
3. Architects Live in the First Derivative
Rate of Change Defines Architecture
Change = Business as Unusual?
Varying Rates of Change
A Software System’s First Derivative
Designing for the First Derivative
Confidence Brings Speed
Rate of Change Trade-Offs
Multispeed Architectures
The Second Derivative
Rate of Change for Architects
4. Enterprise Architect or Architect in the Enterprise?
Enterprise Architecture
Connecting Business and IT
IT Is from Mars, Business Is from Venus
Value-Driven Architecture
Fools with tools
Visit All Floors
5. An Architect Stands on Three Legs
Skill, Impact, Leadership
Skill
Impact
Leadership
A Chair Can’t Stand on Two Legs
The Virtuous Cycle
You Spin Me Right Round…
Architect as Last Stop?
6. Making Decisions
The Law of Small Numbers
Bias
Priming
Micromort
Model Thinking
IT Decisions
Avoiding Decisions
7. Question Everything
Five Whys
Whys Reveal Decisions and Assumptions
A Workshop for Every Question
No Free Pass
II. Architecture
Beyond Software Architecture
Three Kinds of Architecture
There Always Is an Architecture
The Value of Architecture
Principles Drive Decisions
Vertical Cohesion
Architecting the Real World
Architecture in the Enterprise
8. Is This Architecture?
Defining Software Architecture
Architectural Decisions
Fundamental Decisions Needn’t Be Complicated
Fit for Purpose
Passing the Test
9. Architecture Is Selling Options
Reversing Irreversible Decision Making
Deferring Decisions with Options
Options Have Value
An Architecture Option: Elasticity
Strike Prices
Uncertainty Increases an Option’s Value
Time Is Fleeting
Real Options
Arbitrage
Agile and Architecture
Evolutionary Architecture
Amplifying Metaphors
10. Every System Is Perfect…
Heater as a System
Feedback Loops
Organized Complexity
System Effects
Understanding System Behavior
Influencing System Behavior
Systems Resist Change
11. Code Fear Not!
Fear of Code
Good Intentions Don’t Lead to Good Results
Levels of Abstraction: Simplicity Versus Flexibility
When Are We Configuring?
Model Versus Representation
Code or Data? Or Both?
Deployment at Design-Time Versus Runtime
Higher-Level Programming
Configuration Programming
Configuration Hiding as Code?
12. If You Never Kill Anything, You Will Live Among Zombies
Legacy
Fear of Change
Hoping for the Best Isn’t a Strategy
Version Upgrades
Run Versus Change
Planned Obsolescence
If It Hurts, Do It More Often
Culture of Change
13. Never Send a Human to Do a Machine’s Job
Automate Everything!
It’s Not Only About Efficiency
Repeatability Grows Confidence
Self-Service
Beyond Self-Service
Automation Is Not a One-Way Street
Explicit Knowledge Is Good Knowledge
A Place for Humans
14. If Software Eats the World, Better Use Version Control!
SDX: Software-Defined Anything
The Loomers’ Riot?
Software Developers Don’t Undo, They Re-Create
Melt the Snowflakes
Automated Quality Checks
Use Proper Language
Software Eats the World, One Revision at a Time
15. A4 Paper Doesn’t Stifle Creativity
A4 Paper
Product Standards Restrict, Interface Standards Enable
Platform Standards
Layers Versus Platforms
Digital Discipline
Avoid the Skipping Stones
One Size Might Not Fit All Tastes
16. The IT World Is Flat
Vendors’ Middle Kingdoms
Plotting Your World Map
Defining Borders
Charting Territory
Product Philosophy Compatibility Check
Shifting Territory
17. Your Coffee Shop Doesn’t Use Two-Phase Commit
Hotto Cocoa o Kudasai
Correlation
Exception Handling
Write Off
Retry
Compensating Action
Transactions
Backpressure
Conversations
Canonical Data Model
Welcome to the Real World!
III. Communication
You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Understand
Getting Attention
Pushing (Less) Paper
Isn’t the Code the Documentation?
Choosing the Right Words
Communication Tools
18. Explaining Stuff
Build a Ramp, Not a Cliff
Mind the Gap
First, Create a Language
Consistent Level of Detail
I Wanted to Have Liked To, but Didn’t Dare Be Allowed
19. Show the Kids the Pirate Ship!
Grab Attention
Build Excitement
Focus on Purpose
Pirate Ship Leads to Better Decisions
The Product Box
Designing the Pirate Ship
Show Context
The Content on the Inside
Consider the Audience
Pack Some Pathos
Play Is Work
20. Writing for Busy People
Writing Scales
Quality Versus Impact
“In the Hand”—First Impressions Count
The Curse of Writing: Linearity
A Good Paper Is Like the Movie Shrek
Making It Easy for the Reader
Lists, Sets, Null Pointers, and Symbol Tables
In der Kürze liegt die Würze4
Unit Testing Technical Papers
Technical Memos
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword, but Not Mightier Than Corporate Politics
21. Emphasis Over Completeness
Diagrams Are Models
The Five-Second Test
A Pop Quiz
Simple Language
Diagramming Basics
Avoid the Ant Font
Maximize the Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Let Arrows Point
Legends Are Crutches
Layer Visually
The Style of Elements
Making a Statement
Twenty Slides, One Story
Nothing Is Confusing in and of Itself
22. Diagram-Driven Design
Presentation Skills: More Than a Wide Stance
Diagramming as Design Technique
Designing with Diagrams
Diagram-Driven Design Techniques
Establish a Visual Vocabulary and Viewpoints
Limit the Levels of Abstraction
Reduce to the Essence
Find Balance and Harmony
Indicate Degrees of Uncertainty
Diagrams Are Art
No Silver Bullet (Point)
23. Drawing the Line
Behold the Line!
The Metamodel
The Semantics of Semantics
Elements—Relationship—Behavior
Architecture Diagrams
UML
Beware of Extremes
24. Sketching Bank Robbers
Everyone Saw the Perpetrator
A Police Sketch Artist
Sketching Architectures
The System Metaphor
Viewpoints
Visuals
Architecture Therapy
That’s Wrong! Do It Again!
25. Software Is Collaboration
Who Says Software Is for Computers Only?
Version Control
Single Source of Truth
Trunk-Based Development
Always Be Ready to Ship
Style Versus Substance
Transparency
Pairing
Resistance
IV. Organizations
Organizational Architecture: The Static View
Organizational Architecture: The Dynamic View
The Matrix (Not the Movie)
Organizations as Systems
Organizations as People
Navigating Large Organizations
26. Reverse-Engineering Organizations
Dissecting IT Slogans
Unknown Beliefs
Beliefs Are Proven Until Disproven
Unlearning Old Habits
Common IT Beliefs
Speed and Quality Are Opposed (“Quick and Dirty”)
Quality Can Be Added Later
All Problems Can Be Solved with More People or Money
Following a Proven Process Leads to Proven Good Results
Late Changes Are Expensive or Impossible
Agility Opposes Discipline
The Unexpected Is Undesired
Reprogramming the Organization
Handed-Down Beliefs
27. Control Is an Illusion
The Illusion
Control Circuits
A Two-Way Street
Problems on the Way Up
Smart Control
Saupreiß, ned so Damischer
Actual Control: Autonomy
Controlling the Control Loop
28. They Don’t Build ’Em Quite Like That Anymore
Why IT Architects Love Pyramids
Organizational Pyramids
No Pyramid Without Pharaoh
No One Lives in a Foundation
Building Pyramids from the Top
Celebrating the Base Layer
Living in Pyramids
It Always Can Get Worse
Building Modern Structures
29. Black Markets Are Not Efficient
Black Markets to the Rescue
Black Markets Are Rarely Efficient
You Cannot Outsource a Black Market
Beating the Black Market
Feedback and Transparency
30. Scaling an Organization
Component Design—Personal Productivity
Avoid Sync Points—Meetings Don’t Scale
Interrupts Interrupt—Phone Calls
Piling on Instead of Backing off
Asynchronous Communication—Email, Chat, and More
Asking Doesn’t Scale—Build a Cache!
Poorly Set Domain Boundaries—Excessive Alignment
Self-Service Is Better Service
Staying Human
31. Slow Chaos Is Not Order
Fast Versus Agile
Speed and Discipline
Fast and Good
Slow-Moving Chaos
ITIL to the Rescue?
Objectives Require Discipline
The Way Out
32. Governance Through Inception
Living in Perfect Harmony
The Value of Standards
Interface Standards
Mapping Standards
Governance by Decree
Governance Through Infrastructure
Runtime Governance
Inception
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Governance Through Necessity
V. Transformation
Change Is Risky
Not All Change Is Transformation
Bursting the Boiler
Why Me?
33. No Pain, No Change!
Stages of Transformation
Digital Transformation Stages
Wishful Thinking Sells Snake Oil
Tuning the Engine
Help Along the Way
The Pain of Not Changing
Getting Over the Hump
34. Leading Change
A Tractor Passing the Race Car
Setting Course
Venturing Off the Mainland
Burning the Ships
Offshore Platforms
The Island of Sanity
Skunkworks That Works
Leaving Your Island Will Get Your Feet Wet
The Country of the Blind
35. Economies of Speed
30,000 Times Faster
Old Economies of Scale
Behold the Flow!
Cost of Delay
The Value and Cost of Predictability
The Value and Cost of Avoiding Duplication
How to Make the Switch?
36. The Infinite Loop
Build-Measure-Learn
Digital RPMs
Old-World Hurdles
Looping in Externals
Pivoting the Layer Cake
Maintaining Cohesion
37. You Can’t Fake IT
Laying the Foundation
Feedback Cycles
Delivering on Your Promises
Customer Centricity
Cocreating IT Services
Eat Your Own Dog Food
Digital Mindset
The Stack Fallacy
38. Money Can’t Buy Love
Innovator’s Dilemma
Beware of the HiPPO
Overhead and Tolerated Inefficiency
Hollowed-Out IT
Excessive Dependencies
Paying More May Get You Less
Changing Culture from Within
39. Who Likes Standing in Line?
Looking Between the Activities
A Little Bit of Queuing Theory
Finding Queues
Cutting the Line
Making Queues Visible
Message Queues Aren’t All Bad
40. Thinking in Four Dimensions
Living Along a Line
Quality Versus Speed
More Degrees of Freedom
Changing the Rules of the Game
Inverting the Curve
What Quality?
Losing a Dimension
VI. Epilogue: Architecting IT Transformation
Game On
Transforming from the Bottom Up
Transforming from the Inside Out
From Ivory Tower Resident to Corporate Savior
41. All I Have to Offer Is the Truth
Nothing But the Truth
Digital Paradise?
Don’t Try This at Home
Abandon Ship
Looks Are Deceiving
Distress Signals
Index