Architecture Transformation Challenges

In general, everybody just wants good things to happen, yet it it’s extremely hard to affect meaningful change, especially in large organizations. This is a lesson many conference attendees learn the hard way: They get “back home” to the mothership after attending a fantastic conference, and find themselves running into brick walls when they suggest the company adopts some of the cool new ideas they learned. In this talk we’ll take a the typical problems, and try to find some patterns on how to overcome them. Spoiler alert: It’s way more related to people and their interests instead of technology.

Transcript

1. Architecture Transformation Challenges craft Budapest 2019 Stefan Tilkov, @stilkov
2. Our story arc
3. We start with bright sunlight …
4. … darkness falls …
5. … before we end up in a medium-lit room
6. Conferences!
7. Great new technology
8. Entertaining presentations
9. Cool people
10. Success stories
11. ... & Reality
12. Why is it so hard?
13. Stereotypes
14. Professional Tech Skeptic
15. Legacy Lover
16. Vendor agent
17. Process protector
18. Yaysayer
19. Distractor
20. Motivation
21. Professional tech skeptic: Intelligence
22. Legacy lover: Investments
23. Process protector: Experience
24. Vendor agent: Trust
25. Yaysayer: Cunning
26. Distractor: Conviction
27. Why do we want change?
28. Bad reasons
29. Shiny new toys
30. Domain allergy
31. Cargo culting
32. Community status
33. CV-driven development
34. Good reasons
35. Improving the world
36. Improving our own lives
37. Improving our business
38. You return to work from a nice conference.
 Your ideas are met with resistance.
 There are three paths.
 They are labeled leave, give up, work.
 
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39. Option 1: Leave
40. Option 2: Give up
41. Option 3: Get to work (a.k.a. Machiavelli for beginners)
42. Effecting change
43. More than just technology
44. Politics
45. Economics
46. Recipes
 & Ingredients
47. Ingredients
 
 (appropriate) new technology (as desired)
 2 tablespoons of pragmatism
 1 cup of economics
 2 cups of politics
 
 
 

48. Transformation Patterns
49. Pattern: Organic transformation Description Approach Consequences Changes are introduced in small increments within existing limits, aiming for long-term transformation • Introduce new ideas (tech, method, process) into existing projects and development efforts in a bottom-up fashion • Avoid anything too disruptive • “Innovation coin” to limit number of changes • Slow, but possibly lasting change • Incorporates existing staff • Minimizes risk related to disruption • Risk of little effect in terms of architecture transformation
50. Pattern: Architecture playground Description Approach Consequences New architecture approach are tried out in isolation to gain experience and create convincing stories • Decouple technical innovation from existing projects • Apply new tech and architecture approaches to smaller sample projects • “Design thinking“ and similar methods • Minimize risk to existing efforts • Possibly little effect
51. Pattern: Know-how leapfrog Description Approach Consequences Architecture used to transformed “legacy engineers” to “ninjas”1 • Existing Staff is trained, coached and allowed to work on projects to acquire state-of-the-art know-how • Intermediate steps are left out (e.g. from mainframe to cloud) • Staff may be extremely motivated or highly frustrated • High likelihood of employee churn (possibly desired) (1)please don’t ever use this unironically
52. Pattern: Benchmark exploit Description Approach Consequences Successful competitors/ disruptors are used as role models to drive transformation • Follow architectural approaches that are used by (more) successful companies • Hire new staff with experience in tech (possibly former employees) • Possibly very convincing to business people • Risk of cargo-culting, i.e. mistaking correlation for causation
53. Pattern: Outsourced disruption Description Approach Consequences New business models are created using new architecture approaches in a completely separated organization • Create “innovation lab” or similar to drive business and tech innovation • Explicitly avoid any ties to existing rules and regulations • Risk of “lipstick on a pig” products • Risk of problems integrating new and old business models • Frustration for existing, “old- fashioned” staff
54. Pattern: Business value piggyback Description Approach Consequences Architectural innovation is introduced as part of a business-driven project that has its own, non- tech related justification • Cost of architectural transformation as necessary part of development effort • Justification due to business-tech drivers (e.g. Cloud/SaaS, mobile) • Do the right thing and don’t talk about it • Chance (and challenge) to prove architecture benefits • Risk of hiding or playing down actual costs
55. Pattern: Cool employee attractor Description Approach Consequences Modern architecture is used as a means to be an attractive employer • Pick “hot” technologies, i.e. those that interesting potential employees are interested in • Positive influence of new employees in terms of know-how, experience • Challenge of judging competence • Risk of frustrated developers
56. Pattern: Conway-maneuvering Description Approach Consequences Exploit that organization and process changes are driver for architecture and vice versa • Create organization and process with intended architecture in mind • Enforce architecture that leads to desired organization and process • Chance of most impactful transformation • High risk of frustration on all levels
57. Summary
58. Find allies
59. Disrupt with care
60. Organize
 organizational change
61. Ensure positive business outcome
62. “Thank God we can invest in cool new technology and a sound architecture!” – No business stakeholder, ever
63. www.innoq.com innoQ Deutschland GmbH Krischerstr. 100 40789 Monheim am Rhein Germany +49 2173 3366-0 Ohlauer Str. 43 10999 Berlin Germany +49 2173 3366-0 Ludwigstr. 180E 63067 Offenbach Germany +49 2173 3366-0 Kreuzstr. 16 80331 München Germany +49 2173 3366-0 innoQ Schweiz GmbH Gewerbestr. 11 CH-6330 Cham Switzerland +41 41 743 0116 That’s all I have.
 Thank you! Stefan Tilkov stefan.tilkov@innoq.com @stilkov +49 170 471 2625
64. www.innoq.com OFFICES Monheim Berlin Offenbach Munich Zurich FACTS ~125 employees Privately owned Vendor-independent SERVICES Strategy & technology consulting Digital business models Software architecture & development Digital platforms & infrastructures Knowledge transfer, coaching & trainings CLIENTS Finance Telecommunications Logistics E-commerce Fortune 500 SMBs Startups
65. Photo credit • JD Hancock, http://photos.jdhancock.com • Zabou, http://www.zabou.me • Pexels, https://www.pexels.com • Pxhere, https://pxhere.com/en/photo/3482 • UnSplash, https://unsplash.com/ • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bright- sun.jpg (by user Anuragrana18)