Democratizing Architecture Creation

Tom Haskins' poses an intriguing possibility in his Democratizing knowledge creation.

Is it possible that self-directed learners could become the norm, rather than the exception?

The article is well worth a read. In particular, this paragraph got my attention.

We previously relied on experts to fix our ignorance, superstitious beliefs and flawed models. Now it appears that the experts have the wrong idea. Expertise cannot fix our misconceptions because it operates with a flawed premise. We cannot be fixed without getting that wrong idea ourselves. We become dependent on expertise if we fall for the common misconception of learning. We create systems where learning is a noun, experts exercise their authority over us and knowledge creation is aristocratic.

In this case, the word 'expert' is used in the context of academic credentials. That flawed premise is not, however, limited to the halls of academia.

The archetypal ivory towers of Enterprise Architecture and other governance functions are particularly prone to this same thinking. It is no accident that most Enterprises struggle with understanding the value of EA. People naturally repulse from the authority of mandated truth or 'fixing' the error of their ways. I have no doubt EA people are similarly apt to be repulsed. We are talking about a fundamental shift in the value provided by experts.

The true value of expertise comes when it is available for conversation. We refine our own understanding when we expose our knowledge to others around us, so long as we allow the interaction to occur in both directions. As Tom mentions, we reflect on the differences as we engage with our surroundings.

I've noticed an interesting phenomena in the architectural conversations of my day-to-day work. As the conversations evolve, key architectural principles and constraints (stock in trade) tend to be co-opted by others around me. I hear the principles and constraints echoed in conversations around me. The organization internalizes the knowledge and is more likely to provide productive feedback when issues arise.

Tweet If You're Human

James Governor covers the topic of Twitter banality in You can keep your "Business Language": that's not meaningful conversation.

He reminds us that business meetings are often no more compelling than Twitter tweets on what was consumed for lunch. He also invokes the Cluetrain, reminding us that the marketplace is ultimately a conversation.

I have an additional observation regarding the value of these sometimes trivial conversations.

Humans have an amazing aptitude for extracting information from covert channels. Our daily conversations provide valuable information not normally acceptable via direct questioning. The trivial chatter of daily conversation is one of the basic ways we establish trust for the people around us.

To put it bluntly, any psychopath can mimic the ritualistic protocols of business. It seems to take a real human to sustain the gamut between relevant and trivial interactions over an extended period of time. We use conversation to confirm the humanity and credibility of the people around us.

... whether they come from Twitter or from the water cooler.

(oh, and I didn't have lunch today)

IT Impedance Mismatch?

I stumbled upon an interesting slide deck, Information Technology Team Dynamics. It summarizes some work sponsored by the Defense Systems Management College in the US Department of Defense.

The deck provides a reasonably detailed picture of work done to analyze team dynamics in IT organizations relative to several personality classification methods.

It's an interesting read for those interested in the topic.

It presents some thought provoking findings. A few in particular caught my attention.

• Preference for intuition was 40% higher in the study group than the MBTI national sample
• Preference for thinking was nearly twice the percentage found in the MBTI national sample
• Feeler and perceivers were underrepresented relative to the MBTI national sample
  

Put another way, the study group seemed to have a higher concentration of people that exhibited an

• increased preference for abstract theoretical information over concrete sensory information
• increased preference for rule-based decisions over consensus based decisions
• decreased comfort with changing course when new information is available
  

These are at direct odds with situations in which

• previous working theories are disintegrating under new market conditions
  
• new information is capable of arriving at ever increasing rates

It would be inappropriate to apply these to IT as a whole, particularly given that the application of Myers Briggs requires some subtlety and care. The basic analytical process can, however, provide some interesting food for thought when mapping out longer term strategies.

How many IT organizations are fundamentally mismatched to the problems they face?

Engineering Necessity Pathology?

Andrew Clifford has an interesting series of articles working through some of the big topics in IT.

By big topics, I don't mean SOA, BPM, ITIL, PMBOK, and whatnot. I'm referring to the relationship of IT to the rest of the business environment. I'm referring to the deep structural questions many of us ponder.

The series starts with Journey to the sixth circle of hell. It provides fertile ground for thought.

Not surprisingly, Andrew appears to be presenting the situation as a basic consequence of our nature. Is it premature to think the EA community is converging on consensus regarding this point? Whether it's a systemic behavioral disorder or a natural consequence of societal shifts is yet to be determined.

Psychopaths, Bullies,

Andy Blumenthal has an interesting post Psychopaths and Enterprise Architecture, referencing the book Snakes in Suits by Paul Babiak, Ph.D. and Robert D. Hare, Ph.D.

In so many words, Andy raises the possibility that EA can/should play a role in reducing the impact of psychopaths on corporate decision making. Without a doubt, there is much more EA can do to improve the landscape.

It's an unfortunate fact that some of the same characteristics that make for great leadership and those manifested by psychopaths often present the same outward appearance. This is an important point worth pondering for a moment.

Sadly, the topic of workplace psychopaths is rarely discussed in Corporate America. The issue ranges from seemingly benign bullying to full psychopathic behavior. I'm not sure I have the answer except to say that education and awareness are an important first step.

Workplace bullying has a basic introduction, but the topic is deep and complex.

Here are couple links that might also be helpful.

• Workplace Bullying Institute
• The Psychopath in the Corner Office

And yes, I've seen the boogeyman.

Tower of IT Babel

It easy to admonish IT for speaking techno-babble to its customers.

This admonishment is generally deserved, but I submit that it's symptomatic of a much deeper problem. We exhibit the same problem within our IT disciplines - SOA blahblah, SAN fabric blahblah, abstract factory blahblah, delivery management blahblah... (and don't even ponder the acronyms)

There are a variety of reasons for our need to create specialized languages, but the most compelling could the need to compress complicated concepts for efficient internal communications.

By itself, this tendency to compress communications does not create a problem. Combine this with a strong tendency at specialization, however, and you have a recipe for communication problems between disciplines. No surprise here, but it doesn't stop here. Combine this with the need for cross-discipline solutions and you have a recipe for systemic failure.

The languages of our disciplines create barriers to communication even within IT. Our Tower of IT Babel has reached a stunning level - a gravity-defying marvel of modern thought.

Architects, in my opinion, are a critical element in any hope of a solution. We have a critical opportunity to add value by formulating frameworks and models for normalized communication between multi-discipline aggregations of carbon-based message queuing systems!