Clarification: Architect Soft Skills, Part V

I received a note from Pete who thought that sample/anecdote I presented in Part V last week suggested that I consider every non-technical reason to be irrational or at least irrelevant.

This was not my intention. There are plenty non-technical reasons that can be valid and relevant for a technical discussion (and the most obvious/common ones have to do with budget and time constraints). My point was that people often have interests that are not related to the problem, project, or company goals. As an Architect you need to be aware of that situation and learn to navigate these waters; e.g., the comment left by Wayne who suggested making people think the idea you have was actually their's. Note that this would help if the person is driven by his/her ego -- but will not work if the interest is self preservation (e.g., the person was the one who made the decision you now try to reverse), or if the person owes a favor to someone else, or the person you are trying to convince just dislikes you or your boss or has another hidden agenda.

Again, my point of the post was to raise the awareness of knowing who the stakeholders are, understand that they may rbe motivated and driven by interests which are not directly (and sometimes not even remotely) related to the problem.

Lastly, it is important to note that the situation is not that bleak (well, in most organization) and many decisions are made based on valid reasons. Politics is just one of the forces (a powerful one I admit) that shape decisions, but not the only one.

Posted by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz at 07:10 AM  Permalink