Prioritisation
Choosing what not to do, and defending it.
6 to work through
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beginner
An architecture improvement backlog has 14 items and capacity for three this quarter. Why does scoring the items fail to prevent the same argument next quarter, and what should sit beside each item instead?
3 min answer -
intermediate
120 engineers wait on a 45-minute pipeline, merging about 6 times a week each. Estimate the annual cost of that wait, and say what the number does and does not justify.
2 min answer -
intermediate
An architect has more improvement proposals than the organisation has capacity. What sequencing rule matters most?
1 min answer -
intermediate
An architect has more work than capacity and every item has an advocate. What method produces a defensible allocation?
2 min answer -
intermediate
You are a new architect and every team tells you a different story about what is wrong. How do you decide where to start?
1 min answer -
advanced
You have capacity for two of five legitimate architectural initiatives. How do you choose?
2 min answer
Neighbouring topics
Meta-Skills
General material on how architects think and work.
Systems Thinking
Interactions and feedback loops rather than isolated components.
Trade-off Analysis
Making costs explicit and comparable rather than asserting a preference.
First-Principles Reasoning
Reducing to physics, mathematics and economics, then reasoning up.
Failure Thinking
Asking of every box and arrow how it fails and how you would know.
Constraint Thinking
Designing for the budget, skills and regulations that actually exist.
Pattern Recognition
Seeing a familiar problem, and checking whether the forces match.
Pragmatism
The simplest architecture that meets the requirements usually wins.
Judgement Under Uncertainty
Choosing the best worst case when information is missing.
Business Understanding
Connecting a design to the outcome that pays for it.
Influence Without Authority
Getting decisions adopted when you cannot mandate them.
Mentoring
Growing architectural judgement in other people.
Continuous Learning
Staying current without chasing every new thing.
Estimation
Sizing work and cost honestly, with the uncertainty stated.
Research & Evaluation
Assessing a technology quickly without adopting it by accident.
Handling Ambiguity
Making progress when the requirements are not yet knowable.
Technical Leadership
Setting direction and carrying accountability without a team reporting to you.
Ethics in Architecture
Privacy, accessibility, sustainability and the consequences of a design.
Career Development
Growing from senior engineer to architect and beyond.