Angry Architect

If Charles Babbage is the father of computing and Grace Hopper the mother of applications programming then surely John A. Zachman is the father of enterprise architecture.  Indeed, you can barely find a credible architecture book that doesn’t pay homage to the Zachman framework. You may you love it or hate it or may have just grown to accept it, but you can’t deny its significance, it is perhaps the single most significant EA artefact ever created.  And it may just be that when we look back in the fullness of time we will have to agree, that despite all its frustrations and ambiguities it is indeed the periodic table of information systems planning that John so often claimed.

I have had the pleasure of meeting John once and was more than a little entertained by tales and enthusiasm and I can only say how sad I am that it has come to this.

http://www.zachmaninternational.com/

I have to declare my position. It’s not often that Microsoft does something I actually approve of, but I was very please to read recently that Microsoft are getting out of the architectural certification game. It seems that they are handing it over to IASA (http://www.iasahome.org) a body of architects for architects. Well done I say!

Call me cynical but, I’ve always had a irritating suspicion that vendor provided certifications were at best marketing strategies run for the vendors’ benefit or at worst clumsy attempts to brain wash the technical community. While vendor certification for their products does on the face of it seem to be a good idea. I have always had problems with vendor driven architectural certification.  After all I maintain that good architecture is technology agnostic.

My observation is that most corporate education these days seems to have devolved into mouse driving exercises delivered by specialist trainers who do no more than follow the script. Testing the knowledge boundaries of these  “instructors”  used to be one of my favorite pass times. But having recently spent three days locked in a room with a woman who read slide after slide to me for hours on end I can tell you that I’m well and truly over that as well. Exactly when did teaching become piece work?  But, hey I’m probably certified on that product; they gave me a piece of paper,  now if I could only remember its name?

Vendor certifications are not the only certifications that make me raise an eyebrow. Let’s face it the purpose of certification is to establish the certified’s credibility.  Certifications that can be gained by attending a few classes; particularly ones you pay for, are suspect. That’s like learning to drive by correspondence, fine until you get into the traffic!  I mean really, call center dude one day enterprise architect the next. Thank god we’re not in medicine.

Then there are the internal corporate certifications. The problem with these schemes is that they are subject to corrupting pressures like directives to certify so many architects in a given time. Certification is reduced to a rubber stamping  and rigor abandoned in pursuit of a KPI! Can you imagine accountants doing that? The self appointed wise sit around and certify each other! It’s all just a little bit too cozy to be credible.  One such scheme was described to me; by someone who would know, as “not so much a certification process as an exercise in creative writing.”  Beautifully put I thought.

It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario in which the educationally unskilled and inappropriately experienced certify their mates to meet a KPI.  What’s worse is that some organizations then accept this certification as sufficient authority to automatically impart their own certification on the  same sorry candidate! You’d think people would be more careful with their brands these days.

In a world that increasingly confuses appearance with substance and where the truth has become negotiable, as architects we must be on our guard against such nonsense. All I can say is that Microsoft’s decision is a step in the right direction. “Good on you Microsoft” … never thought I’d say that.

I’ll start by posing a question. What is the most important attribute of an architect? What is it that makes him effective?

Is it technical skill, experience, communications skills? I’d suggest that it is credibility. Where does this come from, obviously it can have it’s foundation in any of the skills noted above and probably many more that I’ve not mentioned. However, I’d argue that ultimately, credibility is about trust. It’s about people trusting the architect. Trusting that he’s telling the truth and that he is giving them as accurate and impartial assessment of the topic as is possible for a mere mortal.

Impartiality is an important lesson that too few architects seem to have learned. Architecture is not about who’s right it’s about what’s right for the client. One way that we ensure impartiality is by having objective processes that minimize individual bias  and provide transparency for decisions. By no means are any of these processes perfect, traceability makes the process transparent and so when someone is unhappy with the decision the reasoning behind it can be explained. By this means a good architect protects his client’s interests  and indirectly his greatest asset his own credibility.

I’ll give you an example. Recently a technically competent, but frankly rather arrogant architect at a client of mine made a “judgment” call. Without consulting the rest of his practice or recording his process. This resulted in him  excluding a particular vendor from a selection process for a pretty much commoditized capability. His reason he’d seen the product “years ago and it wasn’t that good then. I doubt it would have changed..” he went on “besides I don’t like XXXXXX”.

The problem with this is he’s lazy he’s made a call based on information that he admits is old and hasn’t  given XXXXXX a chance to change his mind. This isn’t what your boss pays for when he hires you. This architect has no doubt done this many times and because his client trusts him he can get away without due process, he is abusing their trust.

This particular architect however has come unstuck. The vendor unhappy with the unfairness of the decision has forced a meeting with higher management and because the architect has been  lazy and not a little bit arrogant he has no defense. There is no recorded assessment process, no defined principles, just his say so. He’s looking pretty vulnerable right now, his management are more than a little embarrassed and have insisted that a proper assessment be done. Architecture is about rigor, being told by executives that you haven’t been rigorous enough should be a humiliation for an architect.  Now I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy fixes the assessment process so that the vendor can’t win, because for him it’s about him being right. But, the fool doesn’t seem to realize that the real damage has been done. From now on every decision he makes will be questioned by his executive because he was lazy,  biased and has betrayed their trust.  He’s credibility is now shot.

Once upon a time there was an architect known to his friends as Elmo, who worked for a very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer. One of this outsourcer’s clients was an even bigger and meaner bank.

One day the even bigger meaner bank who were in the habit of bullying the very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer decided that they needed a disaster recover drill. Actually, being a big mean bank they really couldn’t care less, but the one thing they sought of feared, a slow moving  almost toothless regulator on the prowl. And given how banks had recently almost ended the world as most us know it, they were almost sensitive to the idea of what people might think and were afraid that the slow moving almost toothless usually ineffective regulator might actually bite them as they too were being scrutinized because the recent near death experience of the world economy was seen by not a few people as being at least partly their fault. So a scenario of the cheap, mean, cowardly, unwilling and usually ineffectual came to pass. All things being equal there were no great expectations.

Elmo the architect was assigned to certify that this drill was effective. Which all sounds very professional. But is really the big mean bank’s way of mitigating risk, of passing the risk to the people best able to handle it. Which is short hand for any barely credible idiot greedy and dumb enough to take it! After all the one thing the recent near death experience of the world economy had demonstrated was just how good banks were at managing risk and what good fellows they were when it came to accepting responsibility and the tax payer’s money.

Anyway, Elmo’s a pretty good architect, a diligent keeper of notes and he knows a thing or two about this kind of drill. A real contrast to the usual half arsed preparation done by the  very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer. While this sounds good and I’m sure the large cowardly cheapskate outsourcer exploits Elmo’s diligence for marketing purposes to win business, his rigor really isn’t part of their business plan. The appearance of it is, but not the actual detail, after all who really cares? Well, Elmo cared because Elmo had certain values another area that the recent near death experience of the world economy had exposed as a strength of the banks and the finance industry in general.

So, on the night of the drill, Elmo in attendance observes carefully, taking notes, lots of notes, lots of good notes with time stamps. At the end of the drill the certification decision isn’t difficult, because Elmo had taken notes, lots of notes, good notes with time stamps. “No chance” he says! And referring to his notes, his good notes he reals of f reason after reason way the drill failed to the very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer’s account team and goes home to sleep with a clear conscious. He’d done his job and it wasn’t his problem to fix. The account team will have to talk to the big mean bank. It was  going to take some money to fix these issues.

The very large, cowardly cheapskate outsourcer’s account team have been bullied so often by the he big mean bank that the mere thought of doing anything other than genuflecting to the bank’s very whim  provokes a panic attack! What’s worse they know so little about IT  that they can’t actually explain to the always grumpy big mean bank what needs to be done. This made the big mean bank even angrier than usual and the very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer’s account team responded by being even more pathetic than usual.

So, filled with fear and unable to explain themselves the very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer’s account team resorts to the only behavior it knows works. Why not, it works on them; they start trying to bully Elmo. At first this was a low level cowardly bullying; as you might expect, which Elmo, being an easy going kind of architect  just takes as folks under pressure being a little snappy. But, he doesn’t change his position. No certification for all these reasons. Well, the very large, cowardly cheapskate outsourcer’s account team are a gasp a techie talking back to them! Well they weren’t sure if he was or not because he kept using words they don’t understand. But, it can’t be good because he won’t say yes. And this was really bad because it meant that the big mean bank would shout at them again and be very unhappy and they might have to spend some money and bring down the profit on the account which would make the boss of the very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer  also shout and not give them some money, they might even miss a payment on their Porsches.

There’s nothing for it the problem must be addressed they decided with remarkable determination for a team that generally only genuflects. We’ll take this problem by the horns! The architect must change his assessment. Then the big mean bank will be happy and we we’ll make our Porsche payments and all will be well.

Problem was Elmo had values one of those was professionalism, increasingly rare I know and often a liability, but believe me highly desirable.  Well you can imagine the sought of thing that went on as the increasingly hysterical very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer’s account team tried the “truth as a social construct” approach on the positivist objectivist  trained architect. True to his word Elmo could not be convinced, after all he had the notes, lots of notes, really good notes with time stamps.

So, very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer’s account team waited until Elmo went on leave and convinced some other architect; who hadn’t been present at the drill and had no notes, of the utility of socially constructed alternative realities and all was well. The big mean bank stopped shouting and they could make their Porsche payments.

And they all would have all lived happily ever after if it were not for the slow moving almost toothless usually ineffective regulator actually catching up with the game! See how it doesn’t happen until the last chapter. Now they also kept notes, really good notes with date stamps. And one of these notes said that last time this drill was done it wasn’t that flash and what’s more you the big mean bank better make sure that the very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer tests this stuff more thoroughly next time to prove you are taking us seriously or else we’ll bite you!

Well, the big mean bank is insisting that the  very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer should take the slow moving almost toothless usually ineffective regulator’s bite on its behalf as they certified the drill! Meanwhile the very large cowardly, cheapskate outsourcer’s account team are all polishing their Porches  and looking the other way while the certifying architect is polishing his CV. The slow moving almost toothless usually ineffective regulator is impatiently tapping its feet and polishing its teeth. The only one who sleeps soundly is Elmo.

Moral of the story, keep notes, lots of notes with timestamps and don’t let  people transfer their responsibilities to you even if they do wear expensive suits.

You used to hear the phrase all the time “oh that’s a religious war” it would be Microsoft verses IBM or Tibco verses MQ. Or any other groups of bigots at loggerheads, each defending their turf for little other reason than that they could. In recent times the religious wars seemed to have subsided perhaps the term is now considered politically incorrect or perhaps the affairs of a dangerous world have made us pick our words more cautiously.

Anyway, what’s this all got to do with architecture you might ask? We’ll I contend and I know I’m not alone in this that the quality of architects is a real issue for the discipline. As I’ve said on many occasions every man and his dog has the title these days and most of them are not worth feeding. The religious wars which at least required the expenditure of energy and some intellectual effort have been replaced by organizations dominated by one trick ponies. These are architects often with fine technical pedigrees that have fallen for a golden hammer pattern. No prizes for guessing which pattern that is.

I’ll give you an example, recently looking at a client’s issue the obvious and most cost effective answer was to exploit their existing mainframe. However, the consultants had recommended a Unix solution. So, being the sort of architect that likes to know why I asked. The consultant’s indignant answer was “least risk”. Okay, I thought sounds good. Problem was it wasn’t true; least ways not from the client’s perspective, they had no Unix skills and a battery of mainframers. So, being the sort of architect that likes to know why I pressed the point. The by now, decidedly defensive consultant caved and admitted that the decision was made to reduce their risk; they had no mainframe skills. They were one trick ponies. They didn’t have an opinion they had an answer, but only one and it didn’t matter what the question was! And this was a VERY big consultancy, the sort of brand that you would expect more from, well at least an honest opinion.

Now while I look down on these people, because lets be blunt they are lying in an attempt to secure a project that they aren’t qualified for based on the hope that they can somehow pull it off. (A dazzling example of managing risk … upwards!) Why people do this I’ll never know it ALWAYS ends in tears. But I guess it keeps the cash flow going for a while. I can at least understand the consultant’s commercial predicament which should stand as a warning to all those that employ consultants. I guess the law of inverse competency should be applied when hiring consultants, even from VERY big consultancies.

What I find a little harder to understand is when the internal architects behave in willfully ignorant ways. At another client I encountered a newly appointed senior architect who gleefully informed me that he was mainframe ignorant, which was kind of interesting that he’d got the job as that platform was basically the business. So, being the sort of architect that likes to know why I asked if he intended to correct the obviously shortcoming? “Oh no that won’t be necessary, the mainframe will be replaced.” That all went well until he met the LU6.2 APPC application. Shortly there after, and several million dollars later both the architect and the mainframe were replaced one by a new architect and the other by a new mainframe. That’s beside the point.

And we wonder why executives won’t take architects seriously. Well its because far too few architects take architecture seriously. In many organizations architect is just another classification for a technologist. The consequences are technology based religious wars and an epidemic of one trick ponies running around with their golden hammers! Typically, this behavior is reinforced by architecture practices that clone their architects. They are all the same! I guess it cuts down on the religious wars when every one thinks the same, but it’s REALLY bad architecture. The wars have been replaced with equally evil and mindless theocracies.  No wonder TOGAF is making such head way! Architecture is about what’s right NOT who’s right. A lot of architects need to grow up and take their responsibilities seriously.