Technology architects aren't vampires: they don't need to be invited in
Photo Credit: Clement Falize via Unsplash
Vampires are puzzling. They have all sorts of rules which help make dramatic stories and films, but which don’t make much sense if you stop to think about them. For example, consider the rule that vampires can’t enter a house unless they have been invited in. Does it matter if the inviter lives at the house or not? What if the vampire receives a party invitation in the post? Is it okay if they are the +1 rather than invitee? Does a ‘Welcome’ mat work? It’s probably best for us not to ask too many questions, but just to accept the rules and enjoy the story. Oh no! The protagonist has blithely invited the monster in for a cup of tea!
However, while this seems strange in fiction, we often encounter its equivalent in real life, especially if we work in the technology department.
Despite years of knowing that multi-disciplinary, cross-functional teams are the best way to get things done, many organisations still have separate technology functions (they might call them ‘digital’ if they’re trying to be modern, or ‘IT’ if they’re being retro). Furthermore, these functions are sometimes physically distant from the ‘business’ teams. I have worked for several organisations where the technology team was the first to get moved to a lower cost location, into the basement, or onto a windswept industrial park - or even, through outsourcing, to another company altogether. (Sometimes the ‘digital’ team gets moved into a higher cost location, with beanbags and exposed ducting: this can be flattering, but can also be just another form of separation.)
This physical and organisational distance often translates into psychological distance. The technology team, like a group of vampires, waits respectfully for an invite to visit the colleagues who run the business, control the budgets and take the decisions. They may even need to queue up at reception to get a visitor’s pass and turn their invitation into magical access.
This is always a bad way to structure an organisation, but is particuarly bad if the technology team internalises the division, converting difference to deference. I think it’s important for technology teams to assert their rights to traverse the organisation (how else are they going to understand what they are building and why?), and especially important for technology architects.
Gregor Hohpe tells us that architects should ride The Software Architect Elevator. This is good advice: architects should be capable of connecting the priorities of the boardroom with the actions taken in the development team and the data centre.
However, when an architect first starts out in a new organisation, they are likely to find that the metaphorical elevator does not stop at all the floors (especially the higher ones), or that it only opens onto a corridor full of closed doors. Senior business colleagues don’t understand why they should be talking to someone from the technology team with ‘architect’ in their title: that’s why they’ve set up those Agile teams and why they get those reports from the PMO. They don’t need to be baffled with technical detail.
I think that technology architects should continue to be patient, persistent and insistent when confronted with a closed door or an unresponsive email address. They should remember that, if they are to design systems which suit the organisation they work for, they need to understand that organisation - not settle for a vision which has been refracted through multiple layers of hierarchy. They should also remember that, just like all of their technology colleagues, it’s their organisation too. They were hired to have an opinion, and they have a right to seek the access that informs that opinion.
Although I have worked for technology product and service organisations, I have never been a real salesperson. However, I have learnt a healthy respect for people who work in sales, particularly their conviction that a ‘no’ is only a ‘no’ if they stop asking the question. Technologists would do well to learn some of this tenacity, especially as, even if they don’t get access to their business sponsors, salespeople will.
Technology architects may live in the dark, work late into the night, and rarely see sunlight. But that should be the limit of their similarity to vampires: they should feel the right and the urge to go everywhere they need to go to understand and change their organisation, even when they’re not invited.
