Random Acts of Architecture

Wisdom for the IT professional, focusing on chaos that is IT systems and architecture.

Tag Archives: Agile

The Problem with Agile Transformations

Leave a comment Posted by on July 5, 2021

It seems every organization wants to transform itself to become more agile. They want to respond to opportunities quickly and cost-effectively. They want to adapt faster than their competition in the Darwinian corporate landscape. COVID-19, for example, required a quick shift to remote working for their employees and remote interactions with clients and suppliers. Geopolitical changes alter supply chains and increase legislation. Cloud, IoT and similar internal IT trends accelerate.

An agile transformation often starts with a consultant-led agile processes adoption. These range from methodologies like Scrum at the small scale and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) at the highest. Despite some negativity in the agile community aimed at higher scale methodologies, these methodologies help by providing structure, vocabulary, and expectations.

However, following an agile process is the least important part of being agile. An organization attempting to increase agility solely by adopting a new process usually creates superficial changes that foster change fatigue, at best, or failure, at worst. This failure is often then incorrectly attributed to the process without any more profound and helpful introspection, leading to the negativity mentioned earlier.

An agile organization needs agile systems. “Agile systems” does not refer to using a tool like JIRA to track work. Agile systems, both IT and business processes, are easily changed and provide feedback for timely validation or correction.

Modern software development practices are a good example. Frequent demos to users and stakeholders and automated testing and deployment, for instance, ritualize change and create tighter feedback loops.

However, an organization’s systems are not agile if only their software development teams are agile. For example, consultants often build organizations’ back office and operational systems by customizing third-party tools. Organizations then maintain them with skeleton teams and, therefore, usually lack the skills or the environment to change them safely and cost-effectively.

Product Owners are not the answer. Product Owners can shield their team’s backlog to encourage agility. However, systems are more extensive than just the team or teams that maintain or implement them. Product Owners are also usually experts in the business area and handling internal politics. They are rarely also design experts and incentivized to think strategically.

Agility extends to data. Organizations are under increasing pressure to collect and monetize data. Agility requires knowing where that data is (“systems of record”), ensuring its quality and integrating it with other systems (“systems of engagement” or “systems of transformation”).

Governance systems must adapt. Regulatory, financial, legal, risk, IT security, privacy and similar teams must work in smaller batches. A lengthy, formal review of a completed system is often too late.

Unfortunately, articulating the benefits of agile systems is difficult. Pruning teams to their minimums has clear short-term financial benefits. Executives often overstate their systems’ capabilities through ignorance or self-promotion. Product teams may fall into the trap of a short-term, sales-oriented focus under the guise of being customer-focused. A system’s agility often depends on an executive’s skill at shielding budgets or convincing stakeholders.

These problems may extend to company culture. Business processes sometimes lack an agreed, empowered business owner. IT is sometimes “seen and not heard”. Insufficient executive representation or ownership means minimal focus and support, making agility practically impossible.

An agile organization also needs an agile structure. This statement may sound tautological. However, an otherwise agile organization that cannot leverage and benefit from that agility wastes that effort.

A good example is what SAFe terms the “network” versus the “hierarchy”. Most organizations structure themselves hierarchically around similar skills for ease of management. For example, an organization often has a legal department for lawyers, a sales department for salespeople and an IT department for developers and system administrators.

However, work frequently requires people across different teams to cooperate, called the “network”. Identifying value chains then building and supporting these multidisciplinary teams to implement and enhance them increases flow, ownership, and individuals’ agency. Effective use of “networks” requires different management techniques and incentivizing outcomes, not throughput. These often fail without executive support.

Organizations are rarely homogeneous. Some teams or systems may be more agile than others, such as through mergers/acquisitions or pockets of conscientious staff. Tracking and aligning these is vital. Otherwise, some teams may adopt inconsistent processes or tools, be omitted from the transformation or optimize at others’ expense.

This all assumes the organization’s bottleneck is the lack of agility. Organizations frequently want to decrease “friction” but cannot articulate it beyond the highest level. Defining friction by actionable, measurable metrics is a prerequisite. Increasing agility also only highlights any poor prioritization or lack of focus.

The “transformation” concept is also a misnomer. Agile thinking encourages constant self-evaluation and improvement, and this “transformation” does not end when the consulting engagement does. From the executive viewpoint, this can scarily move the fulcrum of structural control into the middle and lower levels of the organization.

The chosen agile methodology’s principles best guide agile transformations. Unfortunately, people easily gloss over these in favour of the easily implemented and more prescriptive processes. However, these are often what the more prescriptive parts are derived from, not vice versa. If you want to be agile, internalize the principles!

Agile transformations are more than superficial changes. Focusing too much on process changes instead of systems and structures often stalls or blocks agile transformations. Instead, these transformations require people to move outside their comfort zones, particularly executives. The problem with agile transformation is it is hard but increasingly necessary.

The image is from https://digileaders.com/webinar-shape-agile-organisation/, used under Creative Commons license.

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Information security meets scaled Agile

Leave a comment Posted by on July 19, 2019
Australian Cyber Security Magazine Issue 8 2019 Cover

Australian Cyber Security Magazine published an article of mine titled “Information Security meets scaled Agile”, describing how large scale Agile processes work and how Information Security can best adapt to it and succeed. The article is on pages 18 to 20.

Information Security

Architect/Stakeholder Inversion

7 Comments Posted by on August 28, 2013

Stakeholder Architect InversionArchitect/stakeholder inversion occurs when non-technical stakeholders tell software architects how a system should work, not what it should do. Without the “what”, software architects are left trying to guess or reverse engineer it. The resulting system may not solve the customer problem or may bloat with features attempting to do so.

Architect/stakeholder inversion is not a stakeholder wanting to move a system into the cloud to reduce costs. It is not wanting a mobile app to reach a different, younger market or offer a better user experience. It is not marketing pushing for a better analytics tool. They have business justifications.

Architect/stakeholder inversion is wanting two products integrated without saying what data to share or tasks to provide. It is creating a report engine without knowing the reports it will run. It is any framework created solely to handle nebulous requirements.

Architect/stakeholder inversion occurs due to one of three reasons. First, non-technical stakeholders feel they need to give low-level, technical requirements. Usually a sign of inexperience or frustration, the stakeholder bypasses discussion with technical details.

Alternatively, software developers may be used to implementing what they are told. This is common in environments with many ancillary roles (user experience, visual design, business analysis, copy writing, solution architecture, application architecture, agile coach, project manager, scrum master, team leader, etc) and stakeholders may take advantage of this.

Second, stakeholders often make technical assumptions and present those assumptions as solutions. They may not even realize they made assumptions.

Technical people may miss the business impacts of technical choices. However, non-technical stakeholders may miss technical impacts of business choices, too. For example, while the ongoing costs of moving to an “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS) or “Platform as a Service” (PaaS) provider may be lower, non-technical stakeholders may not consider the transition cost and impacts on compliance, security, jurisdiction, privacy, bandwidth and latency. The stakeholder might not have considered other benefits, such as elasticity (rapid scale up or scale down), built-in monitoring and management tools and cheap creation of test and staging environments, either.

Stakeholders with technical backgrounds may exacerbate the problem. While the technical solution requested may be good, the business context is still needed. Software architects are part of the checks and balances for the business requirements and stakeholder technical knowledge does not negate this.

Third, stakeholders may not yet know the business goals of the system. This may be driven by schedule (“We need to start coding now so that we will hit the deadline”), a misunderstanding of agile processes (“We will work it out as we go”) or a lack of preparation.

Architect/stakeholder inversion is usually solved by highlighting assumptions or providing alternate solutions. Forming these into questions (“Have we considered doing X instead of Y?”) and prototypes/spikes are effective. However, if software architects are on a “need to know” basis, stakeholders set direction solely by intuition instead of evidence or stakeholders take offence at challenges or questions, there may be wider organizational problems.

Architects and stakeholders should cooperate and respectfully challenge each other, providing greater understanding to both sides. Software architects can make better informed design decisions and glean insight into wider and future direction. The stakeholder can get a better understanding of and confidence in the solution.

That said, there are no sides here. Both the stakeholders and architects are working toward the same goal. If the organization has appointed stakeholders and architects, it realizes the value of each. Architect/stakeholder inversion contradicts this and produces a lower quality product.

Update: This post is featured in a discussion in the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) group on Linkedin.

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Big Design Up Front versus Emergent Design

4 Comments Posted by on July 8, 2013

BDUF vs Emergent Design(This post is in response to Hayim Makabee’s posts on emergent design and adaptable design along with some of the follow-up discussions, such as the thread in the “97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know” Linkedin Group and Gene Hughson’s post on emergence vs evolution.)

One argument software architects regularly encounter is that time spent designing systems is wasted. Many say that “big design up front” is not the agile way and “emergent design” is more effective. This cuts straight to the value proposition of an architect. If up front design has no place in the Agile world, are architects redundant?

To most people, “big design up front” (BDUF), sometimes called “big up front design” (BUFD), means a lengthy, detailed design created at the start of a project. It works on three assumptions. First, one can create requirements for a project. Second, one can create a design to meet those requirements. Third, the design’s suitability for meeting the requirements can be evaluated without implementing it. In other words, there can be good designs and bad designs.

Meanwhile, emergent design means minimal or no design up front (NDUF). It works on the assumption both the requirements and design must be deduced so the team starts developing the product and iterates as they learn more about the problem and the solution. The process finishes at a predetermined time or when “good enough” requirements and design “emerge”.

By inference, emergent design assumes designs are often highly problem/solution specific. Adapting existing designs may create more work than they save. It also moves the focus from providing value to following the design.

Emergent design is quite popular among Agile and Lean practitioners. They argue emergent design reduces some waste (unnecessary work) by not creating lengthy documents that people may never read. Of the read design documents, few are updated as changes are made. Many developers are so cynical they refuse to read documentation and jump straight to the code to answer questions.

Big design up front may encourage over design. Unnecessary features may be added (violating the YAGNI principle) or the system may be unnecessarily complex (violating the KISS principal). Emergent design, particularly when coupled with Test Driven Design (TDD), can produce the minimum code required to meet a requirement and no more.

Big design up front may create an illusion the team knows more than they do. This may prompt decisions when the team knows the least about the problem, meaning big design up front can become big commitment up front. Meanwhile, a team that delays making decisions until necessary may discover different features are needed.

Big design up front’s assumptions are also not always true. Every project has a goal but it may not be clear how to get there. Most startups do not have quantifiable requirements, for example, where coding is more experimenting than implementing. New technologies may supersede old techniques or require new ones, meaning designs are either too difficult to create or cannot be evaluated without implementation.

However, proponents of big design up front point out that designing is often more useful than design documents. The design exercise validates and challenges requirements, explores edge cases and discovers mistakes. Without it, developers often dive straight into low level details and even a short time thinking about the problem can expose assumptions or alternate solutions they would otherwise miss.

Emergent design assumes change is cheap. A lot of effort and attention has been directed to this. Continuous integration and continuous delivery aim to make releasing easy. Test Driven Design (TDD) and automated testing aim to find regressions quickly. Agile methodologies like Scrum provide visibility and guidance on how to manage change.

However, not every change is cheap. Hardware can be difficult or impossible to change once manufactured. Network infrastructure changes need to be scheduled to minimize impact to others. Engaging external vendors may require lengthy contract negotiations. Legacy code may lack sufficient automated unit test coverage. Aspects like security, compliance and scalability are difficult to retrofit.

Similarly, software development must be accountable to the organization. Required skills and teams must be hired or contracted. Budgets must be determined. Progress is usually tracked against milestones and must be approved based on return on investment (ROI) estimations. Risks must be identified and mitigated. Early designs (as part of architectures) can help drive all of this.

Designs present abstracted views of the system, emphasizing important decisions and removing noise. This means designs can also be reviewed by others before the more expensive and time consuming implementation to find weaknesses or suggest improvements. Designs of notable projects can teach others, either by following or avoiding them.

The problem with comparing big design up front against emergent design is it usually devolves into straw man arguments. Neither are absolutes. Good big design up front recognizes some design and details are filled in during development. Good emergent design must start with some idea of how the system will work.

Both big design up front and emergent design can be done badly. Poor big design up front can miss important factors, provide a poor solution or communicate good ideas badly. Poor emergent design can waste time rewriting code, introduce regressions and impede governance. Both can create a big ball of mud. However, big design up front need not be change averse. Emergent design need not be chaotic and unpredictable.

Big design up front and emergent design are process agnostic. Big design up front originated in waterfall processes. As mentioned above, emergent design is common with agile development methodologies. However, emergent design can be used within a waterfall design phase (prototyping) or for defined components during development (spikes). A team using agile development methodologies may do some design inside, outside or between iterations.

Both approaches can be combined. For example, adaptable design is a technique where parts of the system that anticipate change, such as unknown or changing requirements, are designed to accommodate them.

Looking at the comparison from a different angle, what does “design” mean? Is it thinking about how to approach the system or is it documenting and communicating it? A small system may be something a developer can completely understand and describe in a few sentences. It has an implicit, undocumented design and can be iterated over time using emergent design. However, a large or complex system using a mix of legacy and new components whose development is split across different teams may need a different approach. In other words, the benefit of up front design increases as the system complexity increases.

Different approaches require different skills. Big design up front requires thinking about a system in abstract terms. It is skill that not every developer has, requiring breadth rather than depth, and is often why democratizing design fails. By contrast, emergent design embraces a detail and code focus, particularly with the focus on unit testing and small, incremental changes. This is one reason emergent design is more attractive to software developers.

Both big design up front and emergent design are tools a software development team can use. Rather than being excluded, software architects are in a unique position. They can help determine which approach is best for a situation. The real challenge for a software architect is knowing the right amount of design for a system and when to do it.

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Should Software Architects Write Code?

12 Comments Posted by on November 20, 2012

Much has been written and debated on whether software architects should write code. Many argue the more architects understand the language, tools and environment they are designing for, the more effective they are and this is best achieved by implementing some or all of the design. Non-coding architects, sometimes called “PowerPoint architects”, “astronaut architects” or “ivory tower architects”, may use archibabble and talkitecture to convince non-technical stakeholders of their expertise while delegating the unsolved, real problems to developers, so much so that it has become an organizational pattern (“Architect Also Implements“) and corresponding anti-pattern (“Architects Don’t Code“). Others argue that architects responsible for implementing their architectures lose focus on the bigger issues and longer term vision. Understanding does not necessarily require knowledge of the minutiae and, as systems scale up and diversify, implementing it requires too much time or spreads the architect too thin. Therefore, should software architects write code?

As with many difficult questions, the problem starts with the question itself. “Should a software architect write code?” can mean “Should a software architect always prototype or implement their own architectures?”, “Should a software architect write production code most of the time?” or “Should a software architect be able to write code?”. It could also mean “Is coding the best or only way to become a software architect?” or “Can non-coders be good architects?” but that is best left to another blog post.

It also depends on the definition of “software architect”. The Canadian architect (of buildings rather than IT) Witold Rybczynski wrote in his 1989 book “The Most Beautiful House in the World“:

“For centuries, the difference between master masons, journeymen builders, joiners, dilettantes, gifted amateurs, and architects has been ill defined. The great Renaissance buildings, for example, were designed by a variety of non-architects. Brunelleschi was trained as a goldsmith; Michelango as a sculptor, Leonardo da Vinci as a painter, and Alberti as a lawyer; only Bramante, who was also a painter, had formally studied building. These men are termed architects because, among other things, they created architecture — a tautology that explains nothing.”

This is exactly the same issue for software architects. Without a clearly defined and segregated role, anyone designing software or IT related systems can rightly be called an architect, including many developers and technical leads. For the sake of argument, this post uses Simon Brown’s definition, where software architects are responsible for high level design, non-functional requirements and technical vision.

Should a software architect be able to write code? Architects should be able to read and write code because it:

  1. Verifies the code written by developers matches the design and identifies deviations.
  2. Helps the architect learn about changes or new features. If the architect has been assigned to a new project, he or she can learn the product sooner by looking at the code, too.
  3. Allows the architect to write a proof of concepts or prototype. A working demo is much more convincing than an architecture diagram and will usually facilitate better estimates. Care must be taken to prevent non-technical stakeholders attaching too much credibility to it, as with any prototype however.
  4. Provides another pair of capable hands during the project crunch periods.
  5. Makes the architect more forgiving of bugs because the architect has likely made similar mistakes in the past. At least, the architect should have a better understanding what types of issues to expect.

Writing code may help earn the architect respect of the developers. Developers can be notoriously dismissive and a software architect producing some of his or her own code, even if it is just a proof of concept, or providing good feedback from a code review can make the developers feel like the architect is one of them. Having a working development environment and access to source code means the architect can try out new versions without waiting for a build or release. Any significant build, development environment or source code control issues also become apparent to the architect.

Note that code reviews do not replace talking to developers because regular discussions between developers and software architects can help build mutual respect. Otherwise, developers may see the architect as a constraint or threat that must be circumvented. Also, developers often know or can find problem areas faster than the architect reading the code but there needs to be a balance between architect self-sufficiency and squandering developer time.

Software architects are often required to settle disputes between developers, such as when one team discovers a better way of solving a problem or that the proposed design will be harder to implement than first thought. Software architects are also sometimes mentors or coaches for developers or may be used as internal consultants to examine process, quality, automation or similar issues. Understanding code means the architect can use his or her judgment more effectively rather than rely on which developer is more persuasive.

Should a software architect write production code most of the time (usually implementing their own architecture)? If a software architect implements their own architectures, this ensures the design is implementable with the tools and environment used. This can lead to new insights, improved designs and more accurate estimations. It is also implemented by the person most familiar with the design so minimizes miscommunication.

However, architects may jump to implementation (depth thinking) before exhausting other solutions (breadth thinking). Existing implementations may overly influence the architect or the architect become attached to his or her code, fighting against needed improvements. It can distract the architect from higher level tasks such as longer term planning, communicating with stakeholders and reviewing other developers’ code.

Also, part of the role of an architect is to fight for reuse, security and other non-functional requirements. Being forced to prototype or implement their design may encourage compromises that the team need not make. It is not that an architect does not make compromises – design is the art of compromise as many have said – more that it is the architect’s job to make the right compromises rather than those the architect makes creating the initial implementation. The developers will likely rewrite much of the architect’s code, anyway.

Indeed, the more an architect focuses on communication, requirements analysis, stakeholder management and non-technical activities, the more the development skills of software architects may atrophy. As long as the architect is providing value via other means this is not an issue. However, an architect should maintain his or her development skills; whether by extensive research, working on their own projects or contributing where they can; but needs to focus on capabilities, limitations and edge cases rather than speed or a complete understanding.

Problems may occur when organizations promote their strongest developers into a software architect role rather than good communicators that are capable of working at higher levels of abstraction. Friction arises when these architects try to “lead from the front” by implementing their architecture rather than facilitating others to do so. Organizations should promote a developer that has better soft skills, instead.

Many confuse not writing code with a lack of feedback. An unprototyped architecture, hypothetically, may be difficult to implement or problematic. However, a senior developer or technical lead can prototype the architecture if required. This also allows architects and developers to work together and ensure the design is communicated well. Alternatively, the architecture can be shared with others that have implemented similar systems previously or architects or developers working on integrating products. Requiring an architect to implement their own architecture beyond a proof of concept also does not scale well, particularly for large or complex products.

Similarly, many confuse an architect not writing code with a lack of accountability. Architects must produce designs that not only are approved (whether formally or informally) by stakeholders but also developers and developers should not approve a document that does not meet their needs. Issues or errors in the designs should be noted. Some change is expected but major or expensive errors should be attributed to the architect. An architect implementing their architecture in code does not guarantee an issue-free project.

With increased use of agile development methodologies, architects are no longer creating an architecture and “throwing it over the wall” to developers. Even previously ivory tower architects are more involved with lower level issues since less critical decisions are deferred until later in the process and design is iterative. For example, architects in organizations using Scrum should attend at least the planning, review and retrospective meetings. (Some architects may move to other projects or otherwise not see the project through, the “Architects Play Golf” pattern. This is an organizational issue and unrelated to whether architects code.)

Many developers also look down on “PowerPoint architectures”. However, many forget the role of a software architect is as much communication as development and completed, implemented architecture does not help non-technical stakeholders, QA, localization, documentation writers and so on. Of course, these stratospheric PowerPoint architectures are not substitutes for high-level designs developers can implement but the architect represents the developers and products to outsiders and developers often feel any time not spent developing is unproductive. Ultimately, PowerPoint architectures do have their place but developers are as much the architects’ customers as the stakeholders.

Should architects write code? The question is loaded and should be determined by the team on a case by case basis. Architects may prototype high risk projects, experiment with new libraries or try out now tools. Architects may completely delegate the design and implementation of well understood, low risk components. The real question is “How does an architect be successful?”. It is a question of managing and mitigating risk. Architects are often good coders but good coders are not necessarily good architects.

Update: There is a large discussion about this post on the IASA (International Association of Software Architects) LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Should-Software-Architects-Code-1523.S.188454845

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In Defense of Documentation

3 Comments Posted by on August 27, 2012

Anyone who has spent a modicum of time working with software developers learns that developers hate creating designs, use cases, “readmes”, code samples and similar technical documentation. Agile proponents point to the “working software over comprehensive documentation” principle and Lean proponents claim documentation is “waste” since it does not directly contribute to the finished product or customer value.

They have a point. Writing clear, understandable documents is hard and it takes time away from coding. Keeping them up-to-date when inevitable changes occur is similarly time-consuming, particularly large changes or redesigns. Consequently, many stop asking for documentation, exacerbating poor or absent documentation. Many developers argue “code is documentation”. It is always up to date and developers had to work to understand it. Why shouldn’t everyone else?

However, saying “code is the only documentation” is a fallacy. Well written and designed code and indicative automated tests can be good documentation but every project includes code the developers are not proud of. Software developers often think of themselves coding like athletes lining up for a race at the Olympics. They have spent years training and are lining up to compete under perfect conditions. However, frequently code is written when developers are tired, stressed or unfamiliar with the problem or tools and this produces less correct and readable code.

Also, and arguably more important, developers are not the only audience for technical documentation. QA (testers), localization, management and documentation writers (those that write the manuals and non-technical documentation) all need technical information about the product and usually cannot read code, at least not well enough to get the information they need time efficiently. Developers new to the product also need a starting point.

Part of the problem is that documentation, particularly in larger organizations, consists of word processed documents or E-mail. E-mail in particular is a poor choice since it is only available to the recipients and often gets lost. An internal Wiki is a better choice, since most maintain a change history, have centralized storage making the latest version easier to find, support access control, provide auditing and can notify users of changes. Wikis are not perfect, however, since their storage formats are often proprietary and they often lack features of modern word pressing tools.

Wikis also encourage splitting documentation from large, monolithic documents into smaller sections. Care must be taken to ensure consistency and information is easy to find but most Wikis support free text searches. This fits better into the Agile and Lean methodologies, where smaller documents are delivered when needed rather than complete documentation delivered up front.

Writing documentation forces developers to identify and empathize with their customers or other developers, encouraging them to simplify the product’s design, user interface, installation and/or configuration. Some techniques, such as Documentation Drive Development and Readme Driven Development, encourage starting from the documentation for this reason.

It seems that literacy has become a skill in the software development industry. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that developers are only productive if they are writing code and poor documentation is acceptable. As Albert Einstein said “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Writing documentation forces developers out of their warm, cosy technical silos and back into the user world, reaquainting themselves with the problems the software is trying to solve.

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An Architect’s Place in Agile

3 Comments Posted by on August 19, 2012

Scrum, the most common implementation of the Agile development methodology, has many well-defined roles. Those that contribute directly to the sprint (a unit of work usually lasting 2-4 weeks) are called “pigs”. Those that consult or assist only are “chickens”, the “scrum master” coordinates the sprint and the “product owner” prioritizes work and ensures the customer needs are met.

So where does the software architect fit in? The architect is not a pig if he or she does not write production code. Is he or she a chicken? The architect needs to be driving his or her features in the sprint and be more involved than a chicken. The architect is not responsible for team organization and a customer representative is usually the product owner.

Going back to basics, why is a software architect needed? Architects are rarely needed in projects with small, co-located teams full of senior developers working on well-defined requirements or well-understood problems. They can usually design and cooperate well enough to produce the desired results. However, large, distributed teams full of junior developers working on vague requirements or complex problems need coordination and direction. This is where architects are most useful.

One way of looking at it is Scrum is a software development methodology, not a productization methodology. Software development is one part of producing a product but there are many other parts, particularly for commercially sold software, such as business case design, marketing, licensing, documentation and localization. The architect could deliver non-functional requirements and high-level designs outside sprints like the other non-development tasks.

However, the architect need not deliver a monolithic document for the high-level design. In keeping with the Agile manifesto, as well as the Lean principle of making decisions as late as possible, the architect only needs to produce enough of the design to unblock the next sprint. The architect will still need a high-level design and identify non-functional requirements initially but Agile recognizes that design is as much a process as a product. Designs for subsequent sprints can be fleshed out in parallel with the development team, minimizing design rework as the team learns more about the problem and finds better solutions.

Could a software architect use Scrum to create the high-level design, either separate to or in parallel with the development teams? This can work if the architect has easy access to the resources he or she needs, such as customers to help understand the business problems, architects from other teams to discuss integration and development managers to check resource estimates. This cannot be guaranteed, particularly with larger, distributed groups – the cases where architects are most useful. However, it will occur in practice if the architect is providing designs for the start of each sprint.

Indeed, if the product owner is remote or often unavailable, an architect fits best into Scrum as a stand-in product owner. This breaks the Scrum rules of only having one product owner. However, different time zones, large projects and multiple commitments mean a single person cannot scale, as a former colleague of mine explained.

Development management may baulk at the perceived loss of control by making an architect a product owner. However, the word “owner” in “product owner” does not mean control of the product, merely creating, prioritizing and clarifying tasks, which architects often do anyway. Architects may not be customers but are judged whether the product meets the requirements or creates business value, just like product owners. They also know the product strategy and have spent time with the customer understanding the problem so are well-suited for this role, using their judgment to determine whether to escalate each question to the product owner.

Moreover, I think the question is not “Where does the architect fit into Agile?”, it’s “How can architects leverage Agile to better perform their role?”. For example, the architect can gain more visibility into the development team’s progress and status (through the backlog and burn down charts). The architect can present the design and gain consensus at the planning meeting that starts a sprint and (hopefully) see it working in the hand-over meeting at the end of a sprint.

Most importantly, architects must be in control of their performance rather than victims of process. A lot of smart people have worked very hard on Agile and Scrum and developers new to Scrum are advised to follow it as written, at least initially, because the reasons behind its nuances are often unclear. However, no development methodology can handle every case, and software architects are one of those things that can fall into the gaps.

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