Comment Who is right for the architect role? (Score 2, Interesting) 405
I love the following quote from BredeMeyer Consulting:
"Too frequently, "architect" is a promotion offered to top-notch developers in an effort to retain them. Unfortunately not all superb technologists have the broader talents and skills that make them good architects. Still, the title raises expectations in the "architect"--and the rest of the organization--that architectural responsibilities are associated with the titled position.
This can generate a lot of conflict for a strongly technically-oriented person who is suddenly overwhelmed with organizational politics and communication demands."
The only thing that I'd add to this is: if you have an excellent developer who you stand to lose, try creating a surgeon team around her. I first read about this technique in "Mythical Man Month" and used it with one of my "gun" developers. He didn't want to manage or even mentor staff. But he just wasn't productive enough on his own because he still needed to do unit testing and requirements work etc.
So I created a surgical team of 7 people who "supported him" (the surgeon) doing requriements updates, testing, backup dev and project management. I know this sounds stupid, but it worked really well... everybody knew their place: working FOR him. But not reporting TO him.
We launched 3 successful projects in that fashion.
Patrick.
"Too frequently, "architect" is a promotion offered to top-notch developers in an effort to retain them. Unfortunately not all superb technologists have the broader talents and skills that make them good architects. Still, the title raises expectations in the "architect"--and the rest of the organization--that architectural responsibilities are associated with the titled position.
This can generate a lot of conflict for a strongly technically-oriented person who is suddenly overwhelmed with organizational politics and communication demands."
The only thing that I'd add to this is: if you have an excellent developer who you stand to lose, try creating a surgeon team around her. I first read about this technique in "Mythical Man Month" and used it with one of my "gun" developers. He didn't want to manage or even mentor staff. But he just wasn't productive enough on his own because he still needed to do unit testing and requirements work etc.
So I created a surgical team of 7 people who "supported him" (the surgeon) doing requriements updates, testing, backup dev and project management. I know this sounds stupid, but it worked really well... everybody knew their place: working FOR him. But not reporting TO him.
We launched 3 successful projects in that fashion.
Patrick.
