The role of "Architect" is sometimes frowned upon in the Agile community as a central command-and-control authority who bottlenecks decisions and limits team empowerment. Or at least, that is what we thought. Follow the real-life journey of our teams as we discovered how the role of an architect is compatible with Agile principles. We will explore our failures, and eventual discovery on how the role brings can bring an immense amount of value to the organization and the teams, especially on large, multi-team projects.

1. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
AGILE ARCHITECTURE:
A Contradiction in Terms?
Our Journey
IHS Inc.
Chris Edwards, PEng
Sean Dunn, CD, PEng, PMP, CSP
AGILE 2015

2. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
SETTING THE STAGE…
• FIVE TEAMS OF 5-9, INCLUDING QA
• MIX OF SCRUM/KANBAN/SCRUMBAN
• THICK CLIENT
• 1 PRODUCT
• C++
• MATURE PRODUCT
• LARGE PROJECT TO MAKE CLIENT/SERVER

3. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
OUR VIEW OF AGILE:
TECHNICAL
EXCELLENCE
TRANSFORMATIONAL
LEADERSHIP
LEAN PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT

4. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
THE BEST ARCHITECTURES,
REQUIREMENTS, AND DESIGNS EMERGE FROM
SELF-ORGANIZING TEAMS.
Agile Manifesto
Is Agile “anti-Architect”?

5. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
WE DID NOT ALWAYS BELIEVE
WE NEEDED AN ARCHITECT

6. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
DEVELOPERS

7. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
WE STILL NEEDED TO MAKE SOME
“BIG DECISIONS”
Language?
C++?
Architectural Approach?
DDD?
SoA?
Layers?
Interfaces?
THERE IS SOME OPTIMUM LEVEL OF CONSISTENCY
- HOW TO DEFINE IT?

8. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
Requirements
Design
Code
Test
Deploy
WE KNEW WE
WANTED TO
AVOID THIS

9. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
OUR OBJECTIVES
• Encourage developers to think for themselves –
discourage “just tell me what you want me to
do”
• Foster design competency
• Maintain minimally sufficient level of consistency
• Promote initiative through clear “rules of
engagement”
• Avoid decision-making bottlenecks
• Learn fast!

10. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
OUR FIRST ATTEMPT:
THE ARCHITECTURAL “SCOUT”
Design
Code
Test
User Story
Design
Code
Test
User Story
X 5
teams
Prototypes
Research
Information

11. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
THIS WAS OK, BUT…
• Hard to get all information to everyone all
the time
• The design skills to interpret and apply the
information was varied
• Inter-team friction
– Different design values
– Inter-team communication about design was not
emerging

12. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
CASE STUDY: MISSED MESSAGES
Team A starts a user story and
recognizes the need for a re-
usable abstraction, and build one.
Team D, not aware an re-usable
component already exists, write
their own.
Team C and D start user stories
needing this abstraction. Realize
one is built already, begin using it.

13. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
CASE STUDY: DIFFERENT DESIGN VALUES

14. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
AND THEN …
WE WERE WRONG!

15. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
AND THE FALLOUT…
ARCHITECT, YOU WERE WRONG!
NOW WE NEED TO DO MORE WORK!
D’OH

16. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
AT THE
SAME TIME…
INNO-VERSITY’S
VIDEO “GREATNESS” BY
DAVID MARQUET

17. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
THE AGILE ARCHITECT
DESIGN SKILLS COACH
FACILITATOR OF
DESIGN DISCUSSIONS ARCHITECTURAL SCOUT
AGILE PHILOSOPOHER
MAKER OF A FEW BIG
DECISIONS
TECHNOLOGY
RESEARCHER
INFORMATION
CONDUIT

18. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
FACILITATING: THE DAILY
DESIGN SCRUM
• 1 MEMBER REPRESENTING EACH TEAM
• FACILITATED BY ARCHITECT
• DISCUSS DESIGN UNCERTAINTIES EACH TEAM HAS RUN INTO
AND WHAT THEIR COMMON APPROACH SHOULD BE
• 30 MINUTES

19. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
COACHING: TEACHING OTHERS DESIGN
• DON’T GIVE ANSWERS - ASK QUESTIONS
• HELP GUIDE OTHERS THROUGH DELIBERATE DECISION
MAKING AND ENGINEERING TRADE-OFFS
• FIND OPPORTUNITY TO TEACH SOLID DESIGN PRINCIPLES,
DESIGN PATTERNS

20. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
SCOUT: LOOKING AHEAD
• MONITOR BACKLOG FOR UPCOMING FEATURES
• ANTICIPATE NEW DESIGN CHALLENGES
• CONSIDER POTENTIAL TRADE-OFFS
• RESEARCH POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES
• PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ENABLE TEAMS TO PROTOTYPE

21. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
INFORMATION CONDUIT
• GET HANDS DIRTY IN THE CODE
• KEEP A GOOD AWARENESS OF TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS BEING
IMLPEMENTED BY ALL TEAMS
• HELP SHARE INFORMATION BETWEEN TEAMS

22. © 2015 SEAN DUNN
QUESTIONS?