Architecting Professional Growth

If you’re not contributing to the future – You will be out of it!

Becoming an effective Technical Architect in today’s world is indeed tough. Staying there and growing further is even tougher!

Today, technology moves at such a rapid pace – we are forced to think, “Accelerating rate of change is the only Constant!”… the only mantra that works is… Quality Orientation in ALL Deliverables @ the speed of thought! –

Sounds unreasonable? Isn’t it?

• Do you feel like the complaint department?
• What do you do when the team’s morale is low?
• Why doesn’t your reportee like you?
• Does this all, even matter? – “I’m a Technical Architect – and a great one at the technical stuff”

NO doubt… Depth of technology knowledge is absolutely critical for the success of an Architect Role.

The question is… “Is it Actually Sufficient for overall results and growth?”

Managing yourself and a team is a great challenge even at the best of times. Indeed, this calls for many competencies at greater degrees of depth than required in junior roles.

Many times projects have failed due to lack of critical Non-Technical Competencies in the Technical Architect… than lack of technical competencies!

In a highly competitive industry like ours, we have very little time to make people understand, correct mistakes and then deliver results. The sensitive balance that one needs to have among various technical and non-technical competencies differentiates success and failure of an Architect… most of the times!

Any Technology is just a tool in the Architect's hands. The goal is to provide a meaningful solution to the customer for a ‘felt’ problem.

This aspect does not change no matter how Technology changes!!

Non-technical competencies are also vast and, in contrast to technical competencies, are very subjective. They span across a wide spectrum from basic mindsets to in-depth people skills. Mindsets are like “system software”! Some examples are “allergy to ambiguity”, “gender bias”, “dependency on others”, “technology anchors”, “receptivity to feedback” etc.

It is a known fact that “soft skills” (as they are usually referred to) are more difficult to acquire than hard skills since it involves changing of mindsets!

While in technical areas, there is a clear “black and white” answer; in the soft-skills domain, the answer many times is “it depends”!! When you ask someone, “Will this program work?”, the answer can be a clear yes or no; whereas when you ask someone “Is this the right way to handle this customer situation?”, the answer could be “try it out…might work”.

That’s what makes this domain exciting and challenging, actually!!

While these skills are difficult to acquire, it is not strictly “in-born” either. It can be developed, once we get a handle on the “basics”… just the same way as in technology!! Get the basics right!

Having said this, let us look at some critical mindsets that fall into the domain of “soft-skills”…

And some critical skills …

Non Verbal Communication Client Interaction Conversation Skills Cultural Etiquette Decision Making Discretion in Information Sharing Effective Writing Escalation Skills (timely, matured & appropriate)

Estimation of Impact of a Behavior Information Probing Inter-personal Interaction Leadership Motivating (Self & Others) Negotiation Presentation Time Management

Growth, and hence competency development, has to be a well planned activity and has to have a good balance across technical and non-technical domains.

To commence into a non-technical trek, below are some links …

www.ivysea.com - contains articles, newsletter, and discussion groups on Organization communication, small business, inspired leadership, and organizational politics.

www.articles911.com - includes articles, newsletter, whitepapers on performance management, conflict management, anger management, customer service, team building etc..