2.2 Sometimes technology helps

As an architect, your role is not just about designing structures but also about making strategic decisions that can shape the future of your business. Sometimes, these decisions involve technology selection, which isn’t about the technology itself but what it can do for the company. Many businesses, even those that view themselves as traditional, can benefit from IT solutions. It’s a misconception to think otherwise.

Most of what you will be working on during your career as an architect will be ultimately about data-driven decision-making. Computers automate repetitive tasks efficiently, transporting data to where needed and providing insights to the end users. Humans can then make decisions based on the low level of clerical work that computers accomplish efficiently.

For example, a manufacturing company might have 500 welders that manufacture stained steel stoves. The production doesn’t probably doesn’t become any more traditional than that. For example, IT can help source materials at the best price, forecast sales, conduct marketing research, and communicate with bulk buyers. While an artisan doesn’t need any of these, anyone trying to scale their business up will face competitors that apply IT.

The following chart (source: Ben Moore, published in Wikipedia) depicts the total output per worker since the Middle Ages. The first significant leaps were more traditional and mostly related to the inventions of the physical world. Then the free trade, and hedged monetary lending started. Since the 1980s, however, most new increases in productivity has come from more efficient information processing and data-driven decision-making. The fact that we in the Western hemisphere have since become so much wealthier overall is primarily attributable to IT.

Some consultants go as far as claiming there are no traditional companies left. They are all information technology companies because most of the extra value they have produced since the 1970s comes from IT. It’s a bold claim, but it’s also mostly true. You can make many physical world products only so much better before you need to process more information.

Technology will not solve problems related to strategy, corporate culture, or human behavior. If your company has a flawed business model, no amount of technology will fix it. If employees resist developing the business, even the best-designed system will fail. If leadership lacks vision, technology alone won’t create a competitive edge. However, it’s important to remember that technology can create prospects for success when it addresses the needs and pain points of the business. Innovative technology should be a source of hope and motivation for business leaders.

While ideally, the business should steer technology, the real world is more nuanced than that. Your technological decisions can inspire new business opportunities or positively disrupt the industry. Disruption is an exciting prospect, not a daunting one. Sometimes, business leaders are least adaptable to new technologies and require encouragement to apply new ideas. Please note, however, that you can not force a change. You always need a dialogue for change.

Disruptive technological innovations can either enable more opportunities for the business or disrupt the core business, potentially hurting the bottom line. For example, a good disruptive innovation could be selling a stove with a smartphone app that allows users to monitor and control the stove remotely. Remote control attracts new customers. On the other hand, a bad disruptive innovation could be a technology that significantly changes how the business operates, leading to a loss of customers or revenue.

The widespread use of technology doesn’t make a company’s core values that of a technology-first company. Stoves are still to warm up spaces and people. People like that and pay for that. The company making them is still manufacturing, and they can never stop doing that. However, your role as an architect is to ensure business leaders consider the potential of extra technological value. This understanding should empower business leaders to make informed decisions about technology integration.

An architect can not effectively discuss technology’s potential with the business side without a deep understanding of established and emerging technologies and what they can provide. Continuous learning and testing are required. As a rule of thumb, a good architect never recommends a technology they haven’t tested at least briefly. You should build a lab to test all kinds of products and technologies. (This is where I am biased and want to distinguish an outstanding architect from the mediocre.)

Figuring out the underlying principles of new technologies is an integral part of continuous learning. For example, before you work with LLMs (large language models), figure out how they work under the hood and what they can and can’t do. Collaborate on experiences with peers and network. Buy something like a Gartner subscription and go to their seminars. Try to develop use cases for using technologies in your company’s environment. Try to figure out why and how they might fail.

When you know enough about technologies, contrast them with the needs and pain points your company’s business leaders raise. Think holistically: what would be the overall changes made by implementing technology? Consider people, processes, culture, and adoption of the technology. Define metrics so you can prove the technology works or fail fast. Iterate and improve by having several discussions with your peers and the business leaders.

Remember that business leaders might have justifiable traumas from past failed IT projects. That is why you don’t build everything from scratch. Use existing platforms, APIs, and vendors to accelerate the delivery when possible. Knowing that others have built similar systems will help and make your investment more manageable. Also, when necessary, talk about building a fast and fail-fast operations model with the business people.

As an architect, you might work a lot with technology. However, you will not always get to work with technology unless you figure out its value and can discuss it with business people. You should always know what the most common established technologies and emerging technologies can offer to the business. That’s why you constantly study them and practice communicating about technology. You are a problem solver at a core, so your proposals must always resonate within your working environment. Technology is a means to an end, never the end itself. Your job is to ensure it serves the bigger picture.