Negotiation
Trading on interests rather than positions, with priced options.
4 to work through
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intermediate
A large partner's integration contract asks for 99.99% availability and a 200 ms p99 on your API, with penalties. Your service currently runs at 99.9% and 400 ms p99. What do you agree to, and what do you trade for it?
2 min answer -
intermediate
An architect must agree an integration contract with an external partner whose interests differ. What negotiating approach produces a durable technical agreement?
2 min answer -
advanced
Product wants a date the design cannot meet. How do you approach the conversation?
2 min answer -
advanced
SAP has published that mainstream maintenance for the SAP Business Suite 7 core applications runs to the end of 2027, with optional extended maintenance from 2028 to the end of 2030 at a premium of two percentage points on the maintenance base. Your conversion programme is estimated at 30 months and has not started. Which date do you take into the funding conversation, and what would be wrong to conclude from the published one?
3 min answer
4 terms in this topic
Interest-Based Negotiation
Negotiating against what each party actually needs rather than what they have asked for, which opens options that the stated positions foreclose.
metricLast Safe Start Date
The externally imposed deadline minus the programme's duration and contingency - the date an architect computes and owns, which competes for funding …
practiceNegotiation
Reaching decisions with people whose objectives differ — by working from interests rather than positions, and by making trades explicit.
conceptSLA Measurement Point
The place in the request path where an availability or latency commitment is observed, which decides what the number means and is where nearly every …
Neighbouring topics
Architecture Communication
General material on communicating architecture.
Architecture Diagrams
Choosing an audience and refusing to mix levels of abstraction.
C4 Model
Context, container, component and code as four separate diagrams.
Context Diagrams
The system as one box, with its users and external systems.
Sequence Diagrams
Ordered message exchange, and walking the failure of each arrow.
Data-Flow Diagrams
Following the data across trust boundaries rather than the calls.
Deployment Diagrams
What runs where, in which zone, behind which boundary.
Communicating Threat Models
Making risk legible to people who will fund or accept it.
Writing Decision Records
Context, alternatives and consequences, written once and never edited.
Technical Proposals
A written argument circulated before the decision feels made.
Architecture Reviews
Reviewing early enough to influence rather than to veto.
Presenting to Executives
Decision first, cost, risk, and what happens if we do nothing.
Presenting to Engineers
Mechanism, alternatives rejected, and what you are unsure about.
Explaining Trade-offs
Naming what was given up, and the condition that would change it.
Handling Disagreement
Arguing from consequences, and escalating in the room.
Documentation Practice
Keeping documents close to the code and honest about staleness.
Presentation Skills
Structure, pacing and the slide that carries the decision.
Written Communication
Writing that survives being read without you in the room.
Facilitation
Running a design session that reaches a decision.