Welcome to the next week!

This time, I’d like to go less techy and focus more on the soft part of being an architect. As much as I like to show code and explain the application of the technologies and patterns, I don’t want to make this newsletter Yet Another System Design Interview Preparation. I think it’s important to know patterns and technologies, but I also think it is more important to apply them in practice.

To put our design into practice, we need to be able to persuade our colleagues, stakeholders, and other peers. Without the ability to explain and persuade, even the best design will not be applied. And we’re doing ourselves harm if we spend hours, days, or even weeks and then don’t make additional effort to sell our idea.

So yes, being an architect is also about talking.

Some may even cynically say that it’s only about talking.

I disagree with that. I think Architects should be hands-on, and I even wrote a (not-so?) humble Architect Manifesto.

Yet, let’s focus today on how to strike the right balance between talking and not talking and on how to talk to achieve the outcome. Let me show you a few rules that work for me. I hope they can also help you. Let’s start with points and then follow up on each of them:

1. Ask and listen more often than tell.

2. It’s okay to agree to disagree.

3. Split the discussions on facts from discussions on feelings.

4. Focus on similarities, not differences.

5. Avoid jargon at all costs.