What is Architectural Thinking?

Architectural thinking accelerates flow and improves quality of architectural decisions. However, it has nothing to do with a particular style of architecture, or architectural framework/process, and is certainly not about any particular technology or tool.

It is more than designing blueprints or selecting the latest cloud platform. It's a holistic organisational mindset that recognises the value of time, and therefore the criticality of minimal friction in architectural decision-making.

Architectural thinking is about understanding (at the individual and organisational level) non-obvious, dynamic relationships between parts of a system over a long time horizon, and using this understanding to make better, value-driven decisions for the system's entire lifecycle.

A key desirable outcome of architectural thinking is to enable others to make better [important] decisions, faster.

For this, architects must embrace the reality of not being the smartest person in the room. This is why architectural thinking requires navigating human biases and technology forces, and making trade-offs decisions across multiple dimensions to achieve a complex purpose.

For example, thinking architecturally about a new building should consider at a minimum the landscape (how does the building fits in its surroundings?), the structural space (how big, how many rooms, what internal/external shape), time (how will it evolve when exposed to the environment and users), and people (who will use it? when? how?).

Without Architectural Thinking, most teams focus on getting the system to work. Architectural Thinking matters because maintains a healthy balance between what is desirable (wanted/needed functional and non functional qualities), what is feasible (can be built with available technology and skills), and what is viable (can be built and evolved at an acceptable cost over its expected lifetime).

Good Architectural Thinking asks:

• Where will this system need to evolve?

• What should be easy to change vs. hard to change?

• What decisions must stay flexible?

For digital enterprises, business needs, cost to achieve, time-to-market, resilience, security, and usability are typically important architectural dimensions. Unfortunately, many architects adopt a purist stance, often neglecting cost to achieve and time-to-market forces.

Key Aspects of Architectural Thinking:

• Purpose-Driven, Decision-Oriented: Having a clear goal (like solving a complex problem), and navigating through all the decisions that are required to reach such goal. The 'product' of Architectural Thinking is, fundamentally, architectural decisions (and not frameworks, deliverables or diagrams).

• Holistic View: Considering all aspects of a system, including business drivers, people (users, administrators, operators, developers), technology, cost, time, and future maintenance. Furthermore, Architectural Thinking considers the external context to the system, at the enterprise, industry, and societal levels.

• Value-Driven Trade-off Analysis: Evaluating multiple options, and the value of each option, across several dimensions (e.g., performance vs. cost, flexibility vs. simplicity) to make informed decisions. Often, time and cost are neglected dimensions of architecting that are critical to achieve the goal of viability.

• Flexible and Scaling Time Window: Considering short-term requirements, long-term vision, and evolving needs. One of the hardest practice of Architectural Thinking is choosing what to leave out (not be part of the architecture) and which architectural decisions should be deferred.

• Human-Centric: The architect is rarely the smartest person in the room; Architectural Thinking requires the ability (and willingness!) to help teams make better collaborative architectural decisions. They do this by focussing on the 'why' (rather than just the 'how'), communicating impacts, and guiding (rather than dictating) choices. As the beneficiaries of Architectural Thinking include technical experts, middle managers, and business executives ("...from the engine room to the penthouse" - credit Gregor Hohpe, The Architect Elevator), the ability to adapt and communicate effectively with many different types of people is an essential skill for architecting practitioners.