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Architects Architecting Architecture March 2011 3/1/11 This is a journal, a playful thoughtscape, where I trace of some of my exploring and thinking about topics I relate to architecting and architecture, and how to be a great architect. Well, it is a journal, and sometimes I succumb to a 'personal moment' but I invite/allow even personal moments to teach me. So what is here is just a trace of some of my encounter as I romp and play in this wonderful land of software and its architecture, and all the territories beyond that I investigate to bring insight and (conceptual) tools to bear on creating great systems. 3/1/11 Call for Papers VARSA 2011: @ WICSA2011 3/1/11 We were invited to submit a chapter outline for a book (in proposal stage) on enterprise and system architecture, and I suggested something along the lines of our paper. The draft outline is as follows: Choreographing agility: strategy and architecture in tandem, by Ruth Malan and Dana Bredemeyer In this chapter, we discuss the relationship between business strategy and architecture at different levels of scope, giving some background into the key concerns of both strategy and architecture at enterprise and system scope.
In essence, architecture work may be viewed as the translation of strategy into designs that enable the organization to execute strategic intent, achieving strategic outcomes through an adaptive combination of design and emergence in the context of empowered and strategically aligned action. We present a fractal metaphor for this tandem role of business strategy and architecture. This metaphor provides a useful way to view, talk about, and enact strategy at different scopes in the organization. Combining fractal and emergent approaches, allows for an organic, dynamic way to orchestrate strategic intent via architecture at differing levels of strategic scope while empowering responsiveness and innovation throughout the organization. Hm, as soon as I see the title, I want to work back in extemporaneous.
You know, fractal and emergent begs the reflection choreographed and extemporaneous. But perhaps agility covers that well enough? Note: not all emergence is due to extemporaneous actions. At any rate, would this be useful to get more of out there? For example, to help create a coherent way of thinking about the relationship between strategy and architecture at various levels in the organization.
3/1/11 These 17 minutes could change how you think about everything, but in particular change how you position your vision and architecture decisions: (TED), below: This is an AWESOME video (heads-up comes via an Oscar Nierstrasz tweet) and I am totally put out that no-one pointed me to it a year or more ago! Now do you believe me when I say that too often we canalize too early? Oh, and do please we need to check our (strongly held) intuitions: This also via Nierstrasz ('oh the irony'):. 3/1/11 - must see!
(via Udi Dahan) 3/1/11 by Sean Gourley, HBR: The Magazine, March 2011. And an illustration of the. 3/2/11 'BMW has been extremely impressed with the potential of carbon fibre, so far. The company has been working with SGL on a type of injection-moulding process that can produce parts in minutes, and be handled mainly by robots. Parts can be bonded together or larger parts made as a single component.
As the aerospace industry has already discovered, producing things with fewer parts greatly reduces the cost of assembly.' -, The Economist, Mar 1st 2011 But, but. Not relevant. What can we learn from cars? That's manufacturing. That's reproduction not development.
Why did we go from objects to components to services? Raising the granularity of what we use/reuse across systems. Not at all the same thing as mass (re)production.
But building systems out of proven larger grained subsystems (built out of proven large grained components built out of. You get the picture) is a path worth investigating. A different kind of assembly; cognitively challenging but less, if we can truly treat the elements as (black-box) subassemblies.
Ok, how about this: 'Each year, the FIA, the international motor sport’s governing body, sets new design rules in a bid to slow the cars down, so as to increase the amount of overtaking during a race—and thereby make the event more interesting to spectators and television viewers alike. Descargar drivers lexmark x1100 windows 8. The aim, of course, is to keep the admission and television fees rolling in.
Over the course of a season, Formula One racing attracts a bigger audience around the world than any other sport. Yet, each time the FIA mandates some draconian new rule change—whether the introduction of non-slick tyres, narrower aerodynamic wings or a smaller engine size—the leading teams have invariably trumped the restriction a few races into the season. And the cars fielded by the wealthier teams, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, are then going faster than ever. Once again, races become a tedious high-speed procession which, barring an accident or mechanical failure, all but guarantees that the pole-sitter (the fastest in qualifying) leads, lap after lap, to the chequered flag.
One of the few things your correspondent enjoys about such a technological sport as Formula One is that—while the design rules are explicit and rigorously enforced by the FIA’s scrutineers—the various racing teams tend to arrive at their solutions by different evolutionary paths. In the process, each car on the grid seems to inherit a unique set of characteristics (“phenotype” in evolutionary terms) derived from its maker’s traditional values and competences (its “genotype”, if you will).'
-, The Economist, Nov 19th 2010 There are so many lessons that article illustrates! The role of challenge and time pressure (and a sense that we can do something great here, because our competition is) when it comes to bursts of innovation. The role of analogy, including biological analogy, not just in communicating design, but as a source of already tested design ideas! The role of a well articulated architecture (in this case, based on a dominant design which is a de facto reference architecture) that enables frontiers to be pushed separately (engine and chassis) yet synergistically. This from near the end of the same article: Meanwhile, at Stanford University in California, John Koza has used genetic algorithms to devise analogue circuits that are so smart they infringe on patents awarded to human inventors. Dr Koza’s “invention machine” has even earned patents of its own—the first non-human inventor to do so., The Economist, Nov 19th 2010 3/2/11 Craig pointed me to IASA's Architecture Foundation: Ramp-up your knowledge in 30 days reading program.
Our paper is the capstone reading for the first week. (Thanks Miha; warm fuzzies felt here.) I hadn't seen these particular pointers/references before:., William Bender and Abhinav Joshi., Ryan Gannon, 2008 3/2/11: the New Frontier The visual design wave of the 90's gave way to the Agile wave of the last decade. Now managing debt is catching some of the refracted limelight from (fr)agile. Hype engenders zeal. Many overdo and hit the wall. We course-correct., Chris Sterling, 2010. (Preview in Google Books window below.) (3/9/11:?
Well, you know, under the.). I read two articles at the start of my day today:. Edsger W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975 (via Joshua Kerievsky). Wayne Perry, Science, MSNBC.com (via Bruce Douglas) Innocuous? Let me pull out a sentence from each: 'The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.' - Edsger W.Dijkstra, 'Scientists have identified four new species of brain-controlling fungi that turn ants into zombies that do the parasite's bidding before it kills them.' - Wayne Perry, I feel like I just heard Macbeth's witches!
I think I'll go back to bed!;-) 3/3/11 More in the Vein of The ' piece demonstrates that while computer science is a hard science, computer scient ists could stand to learn something from the soft sciences. Which is the point, isn't it? Software engineering is about applying technology to address human needs - it is about solving problems in the service of humans, (directly or indirectly) enhancing and enriching life for humans. So there is a cusp between humans and machines that we work at, and sure much of the machine facing work is hard science stuff.
And the human facing work surely stands to benefit from the soft sciences. And somehow the twain must meet. Add to that the 'small' matter of humans working together to create these systems, and. It is has been a long time since I saw that letter do its rounds! 3/3/11 - Leaving More Than a Trace In JD Meier's, he lists accomplishments from his 10 years as a PM in Microsoft's Patterns and Practices and that list is a well-organized trove of resources for architects! I'd pretty much seen all of it over the years, but never all pulled together like that.
The body of work is awesome and inspiring and useful and impressive and. Really good stuff (my brain gets shy on lists).
THANK YOU JD! So, Enterprise Strategy at Microsoft. That'll be interesting to watch through JD's blog window too!:-) Aside: As treasure troves go, no one would characterize my journal that way (garr!) but I still bull-headedly work away at the from time to time (when my self sense surges defiantly).
I think in the end the map might help illuminate what I have been doing here, and help others appreciate it. I did say bull-headedly. I know, I don't do the hand-held version here. I don't believe everyone needs that; those that do, would not find this their suit. But our Action Guides will be great on the iPad.
3/3/11 The other day I was reading about Alan Turing and came across the British government's apology made in 2009. I hadn't known about that piece of Turing's history.
Goodness, humanity can be so inhuman! Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better. 10 September 2009. Anyway, it was interesting to see that the latest.
It focuses on Turing's contribution to computer science. Turing did more than make the leap that enabled our field to be created. In an important way, he was a martyr whose ultimate sacrifice should have brought attention (the precursor to change) to one of the most pervasive human rights issues of our age. He reminds us that even 'straight' people are seriously bent; we all are, just in different ways. Diversity is an essential ingredient in propelling us forward technologically and culturally.
Let's celebrate and encourage diversity in our field, not sweep it under the 'undiscussable' rug like it's a dirty secret. If there's any shame here, it is on us! I don't eat mammals as rule because I don't believe I am important enough to cause mammals to be killed for my consumption. Yet I manage to think it ok to eat poultry and fish. I'm a creature of convenient rationalizations! I strive to do what I believe is right, and I strive to figure out what I believe. And in the face of conflicting forces, I capitulate in some ways.
It is all very personal, which is to say it has a lot to do with the accidents of my birth and of my life. In capitals or small letters. The perhaps names of angels. We are all these bundles of good and evil, of amazing and tawdry, good and culpable. We strive to be more good.
But we are fallible. Our best impulses and kindest intentions can wreak ill on another. Life's like that. And wonderful.
And compromised. And glorious.
Through the blessing of empathy, though, we can at least strive to be more kind. Through the blessing of gratitude we can celebrate the good in others and in ourselves. Alan Turing was an inventor of computing. He was a national war hero.
And an emblematic hero in a cause to bring social justice to a big sector of the world's people. I just didn't know about his role in that last. Our field is so young and so full of exciting challenge, we can forget to pay attention to our history. 3/4/11 - In Stages I redrew that for Dana showing him how simple it is to draw the elephant with the hindquarters and add the ears. Then add the 'damage'. And the architect doing damage control.
It makes for an easy visual, a (cheap?) laugh, and an important point. If you're constantly doing damage control, you can't get out front to lead away from the persistent mess state. Ok, that's freaky.;-) I wanted to link to the 'shoe lace' lead point I made in a post month's ago. Guess what the post is titled?. (The anecdote is 3rd paragraph after the first photo.) 3/4/11: Note to self: I must remember to look in on (Eclipse) when it releases in June.
3/5/11 Here's a great post by Doug Newdick from New Zealand:. It really is a wonderfully written overview of Conceptual Architecture. Well done; thanks Doug! Now I'm in a quandary. Twettiquette would be to 'pay the tweet forward' but that's 'horn tootin' that Q.
3/7/11 Attention Span, but hey, it uses the 'attention' word. Now do you really think that could be accidental?;-) 3/7/11 Following up on Impromtu, I read the wikipedia treatment of Chopin. This, in the footnotes, caught my eye: 'Chopin would always feel twice exiled—from his country and from his language.
Imprisoned by foreign words, the expressive power of his music unbound him.' , wikipedia Early, Chopin showed talent in art, in prose, and in music.
But by being shut off from his expressiveness in words, he channeled all that creative genius into music. His is a great example of that 'look what I did with what life did to me.' He used living, the torments and the passion, being cast suddenly into making a new life, the cloistering of his illness, etc., to be highly innovative and creative, breaking with convention and precedent, making of himself his own distinct person and music. Architecture - decisions - constrain. But these 'canals,' these constrained spaces, also enable. A vast open canvas of possibility can leave us 'wandering in the desert' (Dana's phrase) without a compass and a destination. 3/7/11 This reference to Kathryn Shulz's book Being Wrong (quoted by Tim Kastelle ) caught my eye: 'I n our collective imagination, error is associated not just with shame and stupidity, but also with ignorance, indolence, psychopathology, and moral degeneracy.
This set of associations was nicely summed up by the Italian cognitive scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, who noted that we err because of (among other things) “inattention, distraction, lack of interest, poor preparation, genuine stupidity, timidity, braggadocio, emotional imbalance, ideological, racial, social or chauvinistic prejudices, as well as aggressive or prevaricatory instincts.” In this rather despairing view – and it is a common one – our errors are evidence of our gravest social, intellectual, and moral failings. Of all the things we are wrong about, this idea of error might well top the list. It is our meta-mistake: we are wrong about what it means to be wrong.
Far from being a sing of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world.'
Unfortunately Kathryn Shulz seems to be right about a lot (how will she learn?), but not about that! I'm sorry, but in my family the only thing the rest of 'em get right about loading the dishwasher is doing it - at all. They haven't made the experimental study of it that I have! They think it is just a thing you dump dishes into any which way, not something you work at with great intentionality and forethought, playing configurations over in your mind and trying the best of them out, so that you develop the heuristics that allow you to get the maximum load every time. I read that last paragraph to Dana and. Let's just say the laugh was heart healthy.:-).
Kathryn Shulz, 2011. Cordelia Fine,. Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, 2010 3/7/11. ' Using false-colour techniques, Dave McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh draw out the detail of a honeybee's anatomy, highlighting its fluffy thorax and the difference between its three pairs of legs, which vary in shape according to their function.' - Kat Austen, NewScientist, February 2011 The is lovely!
Well, form and function should be intimate with one another. The point is that, as nature teaches us, form should be in harmony with the functions it enables. In evolving systems, functions cause adaptations adjusting form to fit function; form enables and constrains functions so functions are adapted to and by form. So design of form and function should be intimate, influencing one another. Not form follows function - that is, not form after function.
3/8/11 Responding to a question about guiding principles for EA, I mentioned the on the Bredemeyer site, as well as our page (you know, describing the Minimalist, With Teeth and Connect-the-Dots principles). Which caused me to think again about principles and I went back and added clarifying commentary to my. If you're interested in Architecture Principles, please do read that post (and its extension) and let me know if it works and what questions arise.
Of course, guiding principles for enterprise architects are more like the second , and less like the first , though clearly there is overlap. They accrete in the space enterprise architects are paying attention to and being guided by, rather than the space they're requiring others to pay attention to.;-) This looks like an example more along the lines of guiding principles:. Andy Wager What we call these things, and how we treat them, is going to have something to do with whether they are going to be part of our architecture (formally), and hence under governance. In other words, do teams have to motivate (and even formally request an exception) their decisions when they run counter to the principle, or is it something they can treat as simply a guideline? If the latter, perhaps we'll just call it that - a guideline., Martin Fowler (caveat - just a workshop exercise) 3/8/11 The comments on post point to improvements that need to be made to the presentation of Conceptual Architecture on the Bredemeyer site.:-) - I'll get right on that (in the morning)!
It might be worth stating again that what is in VAP is emergent and adapted, not 'unprecedented invention'. 'For the first few years, we balked at giving VAP a name, because to us it is just what architects do, organically scaling up and down with the organizational and system complexity and state of maturity (or lessening degrees of freedom) of the system. Then we found clients calling it the 'Bredemeyer Process' and we balked still more at that, so called it Visual Architecting to place an emphasis on the visual (integral to the collaboration, conceptualization and communication inherent in designing systems to be built with and through the empowered contribution of many minds - and impacted by the whole person that houses that mind). The key has always been that architects have an enabling toolkit (along with models that organize, but by no means dictate, the decisions, views and threads of reasoning), but architects decide what is architecturally significant for their system, and how to go about addressing only what is, to the extent necessitated by a commitment to realizing strategic system outcomes.' - (see also ) For example, responsibilities derives from CRC cards (class-responsibility-collaborator cards from Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham, and related to responsibility-driven design work of Rebecca Wirfs-Brock), but we applied the template (also used in the Buschmann et al Architectural Patterns book but we were doing this before that was published) to architectural elements/components and added rationale - hence CRC-R. That was back in the mid-90's. More recently, documenting the rationale for architectural decisions has become a point of emphasis more generally in the community, but we banged that drum from the first.
Now I should mention, we use those lists of component responsibilities to factor and, coming up with different design alternatives, assessing cohesion and resilience of the design to changes in response to different forces. This makes conceptual architecture a very powerful part of our 'experiment on the cheap' toolkit, because we can play out different approaches cheaply - with sketchy models and informal lists of responsibilities. Looking across the responsibilities, we can evaluate cohesion, we assess balance and coupling, so that we create crisp abstractions. We posit responsibilities, and then use interactions diagrams (just sketchy, early on) to explore behavior and discover responsibilities, and revisit the factoring.
We're giving the system early shape, focusing on model-storming alternative approaches. And as Benjamin Carlisle points out, by talking through this conceptual model with non-technical stakeholders, they can play a role in validating fitness to purpose and uncovering opportunities/unstated requirements or intentions, desires and expectations. It is surprising how often make-or-break big things are surfaced through the aid of so simple a diagram, just because fresh perspective, new questions, looking from a different vantage point, assessing alternatives, etc. All become possible. It is also a great vehicle for navigating the system, assessing the impact of new features, for thinking about the team structure (Conway's Law), etc.
It is a thinking/experimenting aid, providing the means to reason about the system and alternative approaches (yes, we may - nay, will - need to dive down into details in some areas, etc.). We're thinking about 'large rocks' and large rocks are costly to change as more and more of the system is built out. And they're a communication aid, enabling conversations with stakeholders who might not have perceived they could contribute or be interested - important because at this level, if something is missing or misunderstood or a better way to do it emerges, the impact is strategic! And a navigation aid - important in large systems. I'm repeating myself. It's - gulp - almost 2am. Always too much to do in a day!
Aside: I do want to hasten to add that in all of my work, I do encourage suggestions and different perspectives, approaches and ideas - the acknowledgments in our Cutter papers (e.g., ) will give you a window on that process. I just prefer it to be personal, because conversations (f2f, email, IM or skype) are so important to pushing ideas along, but collaborative conversations are founded on, and develop, trust and respect. I understand the need for and value community conversation, but I also know that my personal style is gentle and combative approaches just crash my systems. So in the interests of journaling my exploration in public, I offer a compromise.
Which is to say feel free to contact me ( ) if you want to collaboratively push some conception around and extend the boundaries of my thinking, share resources with peer architects, etc. Where you permit, what I learn from those conversations will be reflected here (with attribution) as I'm very committed to sharing my teachers and influencers as best I can. That said, after successive attributions, if the concept sufficiently enters my mental model I may start to use a concept or technique without attribution - for example, I've used and attributed 'bliss-following' to Grady Booch (who attributes it to ) but I don't do so any more because that'd be seriously old for people who read along here regularly. That said, if it became clear that a place to converse was desired and would be used to further my and the community's conceptual toolkit, I would be happy to make my blog more active. 3/17/11: Motivation for refactoring during architecting: 3/8/11 We have renamed the 'validation' aspect of VAP iterations to 'improve/validate' and that hasn't worked its way through all the models and images. The burden of legacy.sigh.:-) Which leads me to.
' is how we explicitly go after, recognizing that is opportunity. Because the mind has A Mind of its Own. In, Dan North talks about 'axes of ignorance.'
If you're familiar with VAP, you'll recognize that 'axes of ignorance' just maps to our 'uncertainties, challenges and risks' (on our architecture dashboard) that we use to direct attention when we ask that orienting question 'what, at this extraordinary moment, is the most important thing I should do today' (Bucky Fuller). The difference is that we advocate learning with the cheapest medium that will serve. If we can learn with an exercise of the imagination, with a (sketchy) model, with role play, with a (paper) mock-up, with something analogous, with a focused prototype (call it a spike if you want), then we do that. And we do it bringing in other stakeholders (another conversation we need to have) into an 'improve/validate' session - early we focus on 'failing' (fast, cheap, small - to save us from failing big, at great cost). Which is to say, success is finding stuff we're doing wrong or could stand to do differently and in some sense better.
It is worth pointing out that the uncertainties may have to do with the market, the system concept and which capabilities will create strategic advantage, or with technology and how we will build the capabilities. We're designing that form and function that will be in harmony with its (various) context(s) and within itself. Various contexts - of use, and development, evolution, operation, etc. Some discussions of VAP:. high-level overview: p11 - 21 (the opportunity discovery aspects of VAP are emphasized here, and the design work is quite sketchily overviewed). a spoof of VAP (that really lends insight into how we tend to work, hence what VAP helps us overcome): (The Devil's Dictionary). (about iteration and threads of reasoning).
I know, I know, the book is long overdue. But it will be a different book than it could have been even 6 years ago.
In the meantime, the is by no means complete, but it is a growing survey of the landscape. 3/27/11: The architect as leader has to discern which 'oh crap' moments need to be addressed and how, keeping the team's focus on the energizing vision and the compelling need so that 'black hat' nay-sayers don't damp the optimism and enthusiasm of the team, and helping everyone stay positive about the averted point of failure inherent in that moment of sinking feeling that opens up to finding a better approach. Architects need to be resilient and enthusiastic.
When I mention resilience, I think I will forever more remember Garr Reynolds (who lives in Japan) post on that topic:. Barely a day goes by that I don't sob for the people in NE Japan.
My heart breaks with their broken hearts, but they do also lift my spirit with their dignity and grace. 3/9/11 Via a Kent Beck tweet: “The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him.” - Jose Ortega y Gasset (Spanish philosopher and humanist, 1883-1955) Metaphors in design:., Hernan Pablo Casakin, 2007 3/9/11 If you haven't read our paper, or haven't read it in a while, I'm going to suggest you at least read page 6-10. I just reread that because I'd recommended it to someone and then felt self-conscious at the audacity. Rereading it, I'm reminded why I so love that story.
In three short chapters (or 5 pages in my recounting and debrief), it covers what whole books on innovation and leadership tackle but without the charm. It has the tastiest insights, like: 'But we’ll think better each on his own stoop, because often thinking gets lost in talking.' - Meindert de Jong, The Wheel on the School I guess now I need to create entries on symbol and (visual) analogy. All this: When we create, there is some element of mastery and it is not purely technical but also something akin to the mastery of a poet who uses compression, allusion, metaphor and synecdoche; the visual artist who uses symbol and imagery, composition, abstract representation, etc.; and the engineer who uses analogy, sketches and schematics and more. These abstractions work if they are simple and yet hold meaning - meaning that grows as the abstraction is elaborated and reified; meaning that is adapted as the abstraction is realized and shaped in encounters and interactions with its world.
As for that post - I laughed out loud at the two sentences and links below the stone pictures. Who's been writing in this journal anyway? 3/10/11 The 'have a point of view' meme has emerged in the design community (articulated by Diego Rodriguez and ), and it relates to what I've been about developing a strong and unique individual aesthetic because that is what creates distinguishing system integrity in system design. It occurred to me, watching Doug Hofstadter's presentation, that what I'm getting at is developing 'design fiber' which is like moral fiber but in a system design sense. It is your design compass, if you like. Analogous to a moral compass, and with strong elements of your moral compass built into it. 3/10/11 Remember this:, D.L.
Parnas, Carnegie-Mellon University, Reprinted from Communications of the ACM, Vol. 12, December 1972? In it, Parnas demonstrates developing architectural alternatives where the architectural elements (components, modules.) have different configurations of responsibilities and interfaces, and assessing them with respect to key forces or strains that the system will be subjected to - like design changes. And team organization and work allocation. One of the many things that Parnas understood and positioned astutely (way back when), was the importance of context: 'This is a small system. Except under extreme circumstances (huge data base, no supporting software), such a system could be produced by a good programmer within a week or two. Consequently, none of the difficulties motivating modular programming are important for this system.'
Parnas, 1972 3/10/11 I watched Doug Hofstadter's presentation. 3/11/11 Visualization: More Modeling Tools (with MDD flavor). Graphical modeling in Eclipse - 2011. 3/11/11 Safety-Critical Systems and FTA., Bruce Powel Douglass, 4/27/2009., Bruce Powel Douglass, 4/28/2009., Bruce Powel Douglass, 4/29/2009 3/11/11 This article (via Chris) is worth a read, I think:. It is a vivid story that culminates with insights like this: 'We all fictionalise ourselves in the process of creating a story out of the raw materials of our life. For some it is a soap opera, for others an epic, but, for all of us, it’s an ongoing narrative that we constantly manipulate and reshape, improving (like the best anecdotes) in the retelling.
This is not just true of writers. The story is one of the key ways we define and order our experiences as human beings: how we tell ourselves and others who we are.
And our stories are full of omission and exaggeration, the stuff of subjective experience.' - Neil McCormick, Here's a line to downsize our kind. 'It’s OK, he’s playing you as a kind of supergeek. That should be enough to put people off.” And you wonder why waterfall/division of labor? We put people off!:-) 3/12/11: We put people off? Well, that sounds extreme, but there is something to that, and it frankly took me by surprise. Because we actively champion the inclusion of architects early - in relevant pools of strategy and system conception - we hear the perspective of product and strategic managers who want to shield their non-technical people from dismissive techchismo during the ambiguous and uncertain discovery that characterizes strategy formulation.
I have spent the best part of the last two decades working with software architects who are enthusiastic, creative, open, playful, and it took the wind out of my sails to get this push-back. Somehow a real or a projected experience has created the expectation that we'll make an assessment (simplistically), assert what should be done, and disparage anyone who ventures an alternative point of view. It occurred to me that for some technologists who are really master of their craft but out of their zone of mastery in the ambiguous, uncertain fuzzy front-end, this discomfort can cause disengagement or defensive assertiveness, surfacing as impatience to get on with it and do something. Developing code, we focus on bringing problems under control, not letting them free-associate into big buzzing uncertainty. This is not to excuse what comes across as hurtful dominating and belittling behaviors, but it does help us to understand them.
I don't believe that this should push us away from inclusion of technologists in system conception and strategy exploration and system design, protecting business users and customers from 'elitist arrogantly dismissive software folk who speak a tech-ese that is far from business reality.' But it is one of those undiscussables that impede concurrent development (with multi-functional/cross-disciplinary teams). It is a case of 'I have seen the elephant in the room, and he is we.' At least, he is who we are perceived to be.
So the stereotypes further entrench themselves. Technologists conclude the business is clueless (because they aren't informed by technology capabilities and limitations and opportunities and directions) and the business thinks technologists are only good for executing to a narrowly defined plan. When we get locked in these perceptual camps, we don't get the opportunity to break the mold. It takes trust and positive expectations to get out of this cycle. Now an important dimension of this discussion of work divided by specialty is that in complex cognitive domains, specialization is crucial.
There is just too much to know for one brain to hold it all and act on it. However, for innovation, connections need to be made across specialty areas. Mastery tends to drive a narrowing of focus that creates a frame of reference from which it is hard to see other points of view. Experts tend on the whole to form very rigid camps, that within these camps a dominant perspective emerges that often silences opposition, that experts move with the prevailing winds often hero-worshipping their own gurus.' -, TED London, 2010 Our education systems, our work experience, so much drives us in the direction of specializing in a functional discipline. A person who is credible, conversant and productive in both software development and strategy exploration has a vital role to play, developing a special kind of mastery - that of system thinking and design (making it possible to make things more the way we want them to be).
So the people who are effective at bringing divergent, diverse perspectives from different disciplines together to bring about differentiating innovations are to be treasured. Not at the expense of the masters of specialty focus, but in addition to them. ' Fragmentation is a condition in which the stakeholders in a situation see themselves as more separate than united. The fragmented pieces are, in essence, the perspectives, understandings and intentions of the collaborators, all of whom are convinced that their version of the problem is correct.
As we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium, it is clear that the forces of fragmentation are increasing, challenging our ability to create coherence, and causing more and more projects to flounder and fail. The antidote to fragmentation is shared understanding and shared commitment.'
- Consequently, we need to foster mastery and contribution (essential to motivation, which for smart people is hard to tease apart from personal happiness or joy in work) and much more organically bring diverse perspectives and contributions together to address the wicked problems of system conception and design. We need a more organic notion of process (where process amounts to activities and how we communicate and co-ordinate them to achieve desired outcomes). By organic, I mean it acts like an organism, responding and adapting to environmental conditions, state, and intent. Conception of a system is part re-conception of the ecosystem it will shape and be shaped. We're think about the value network and about the system, shaping both the form and function of the system as it shapes and is shaped by the ecosystem (as it touches and interacts with, hosts and gets value from the system). 'Studying one blade is not enough; it takes both for the scissors to cut.' - Herbert Simon Thus system design is not an only-technical activity (the software design view), though if we move away from the notion that design is just skin-deep, then design is not a-technical either.
“Designers create two things: the problem space and the solution space. As they engage with a problem, they are continuously redefining what the problem is, and what the solution is.” – 'Organizations are beginning to embrace the idea that these two aspects of projects – problem understanding and solution formulation – are not distinct phases, but rather different kinds of conversations that must be woven together from beginning to end. At the heart of this new understanding of organizational life is the recognition that project work is fundamentally social, and that communication among stakeholders must be managed and nurtured in order for the social network to cohere into a functioning entity. What is missing from our ‘social network tool kit’ is an environment or ‘container’ in which stakeholders can collectively step back to see the big picture. ' 'What Rittel said is, it’s just not that easy. Problem understanding is actually the more important and evasive part of the process.' -, p.18 Image source: Six Characteristics of Wicked problems, Jeff Conklin (interviewed by Karen Christensen), Rothman Magazine, Winter 2009, p.
19 Many who advocate agile, stop at point number 1. By quickly getting more potential solutions on table and exploring them in quick mock-up form, we eliminate some of the worse options (one of which might have been built, if we stopped at 1 and just built the first thing we thought about).
If you were preparing to tun into the earnings call and webcast on Friday, you'll have to adjust plans accordingly. BlackBerry has now announced the conference call and webcast have been canceled though results will still be made available on Friday, September 27 at 7:00 a.m. In light of the letter of intent agreement between BlackBerry and Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited that was signed and announced on Monday, September 23, BlackBerry has cancelled its second quarter earnings conference call and webcast that had previously been scheduled for Friday, September 27 at 8:00 a.m. The company will publish further details regarding its second quarter results in the Management's Discussion and Analysis and consolidated financial statements, to be filed next week. Although the reasoning is there, it's sure to upset some investors due to the fact.
If you're looking for the full press release, you'll find it below. Press Release. BlackBerry Financial Results to be Released at Approximately 7:00 am Eastern on Friday, September 27 Company Cancels Conference Call Due to Previously Announced Letter of Intent WATERLOO, ONTARIO-(Marketwired - September 25, 2013) - BlackBerry® Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY)(TSX: BB) today announced that it will release its complete second quarter financial results on Friday, September 27 at 7:00 a.m.
In light of the letter of intent agreement between BlackBerry and Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited that was signed and announced on Monday, September 23, BlackBerry has cancelled its second quarter earnings conference call and webcast that had previously been scheduled for Friday, September 27 at 8:00 a.m. The company will publish further details regarding its second quarter results in the Management's Discussion and Analysis and consolidated financial statements, to be filed next week. About BlackBerry A global leader in wireless innovation, BlackBerry® revolutionized the mobile industry when it was introduced in 1999. Today, BlackBerry aims to inspire the success of our millions of customers around the world by continuously pushing the boundaries of mobile experiences. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
BlackBerry is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: BBRY) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BB). For more information, visit www.blackberry.com.
BlackBerry and related trademarks, names and logos are the property of BlackBerry Limited and are registered and/or used in the U.S. And countries around the world.
All other marks are the property of their respective owners. BlackBerry is not responsible for any third-party products or services.
It is what it is. Im glad they decided to do it this way. We all know the results.
I have always excepted the risks in these kinds of investments, as the tech sector has always been extremely volatile. Right now I'm completely worn out from years of Blackberry drama.
I truly feel for those who lost alot, be it shareholders and layoffs. Lets jus get this whole thing over with and let BlackBerry alone so they can concentrate on building the brand again. At the end of the day it is the choice that we make to support this company, nobody twisted our arms to buy their products. I use these products because for one reason and one reason alone, personal choice no regrets. I do not understand why they named Torsten CEO after they removed the two founders of the company if Torsten was their guy. If the idea was really to remove the two founders and bring in someone with a fresh vision, you would recruit someone either from outside the company or at least someone independent and less associated with the founders. They just continued on the same, languid path and did not do anything innovative or different at all in terms of their marketing.
Everyone's been complaining about Torsten's performance. My issue is that if he is not a marketing guy then he had better be an outstanding operations guy.
As it turns out he was neither. He was perhaps a good engineer or even a great engineer. He is not a manager though. Bear in mind it probably takes at least a couple of years (probably more like 3 or 4) to create an operating system as complex as BB10. Android was started in 2003 but not released until 2007 for example.
It also takes more than 18 months to unpick the complex mess created when you grow from 2000 employees to 20,000 employees in 5 years. Up until the launch of BBM for Android, Heins had executed pretty well. As far as developers are concerned they delivered everything pretty well on time and have created a better environment by far. You can argue about marketing, but they didn't exactly have an even playing field. Frank Boulben has already said they had expected US carriers to market the devices and clearly were surprised when they did not. (The surprise being the problem). Well I guess if you aren't going to take any questions, there isn't much point in having a conference call.
And you certainly aren't going to take any questions when you are in the middle of buyout negotiations. So I guess this makes sense. We will still have all the relevant information in the press release. At least enough information for us amateurs. And then the full 10-Q will come out as well. You will all have all the information you want.
There just won't be any questions answered, which would almost certainly be about the future. And BBRY isn't going to talk about that. Hey BlackBerry, huge fan here, former shareholder as well. Embarrassed to see this level of disregard for all the BlackBerry Investors. Even the smallest stake holder is part owner of the company. It is the obligation, and should be at the forefront of the ceo's mind, to answer to investors and to create, or at least try to create, some shareholder value.
If mgmt has dropped the ball as we've come to expect, at least have the respect to come out and tell us. I love my Z10 and I wish very much to see the company succeed. If Prem is successful in his bid (it's starting to look as though this was BlackBerry's plan from the beginning), then I wish him all the best in turning this company around. Posted via CB10. Chill, I own shares too.
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The conference calls are all about satisfying the bulls###ers (analysts), not answering shareholder concerns. There will be a vote on the offer eventually and if no other offers have been put on the table before then, the hard question for you will be whether to vote for $9 or to vote for the toilet because I guarantee that if this offer is rejected, that is where the share price will be. PS, I think $9 sucks too, but I don’t believe any of the conspiracy theories floating around. Posted via CB10.
People peeing and whining about BlackBerry's 'poor management' are usually the ones barely able to manage their own lives. So far, BlackBerry's CEO is executing rather well, despite the awkward circumstances he's been handed.
He's been shit on more than a toilet. BlackBerry products are generally equal or superior in overall build quality than any Apple product, far superior to anything Samsung puts together, and is basically in the same boat as all the other niche players. Great products dwarfed by giants exploiting the masses ignorance of technology, which the developers then follow because that's where the money goes. You could almost compare this to the European explorers selling trinkets to the American natives in exchange for valuable goods.
After what the media has done thus far,for Blackberry has not done them any good.Im glad i wont hear about them through wall street.Im not a share-holder and if you have spare money to invest in stocks you can also afford to take a chance of losing it too.Yes ill agree it suck's but isnt that the game there playing. Im just a consumer of the blackberry and hope it stay's around,im on a 3yr contract and im sure ill be fine for that after that time if i need to switch i would have to say id go window's only because that what i use at home and work. So go buy one.
Why bother if your perspective is to compare them to a company that has a large fan base, has a huge marketing budget and then only puts out one new phone a year. BlackBerry has a small fanbase and put out 4 new phones and another on the way. How many have they sold in total of just new phones? It may not be 9 million but it isn't 0 like so many claim.
Forget answering your questions. I think many of us fans have already made up our minds anyway.
What is some BS they feed us going to do? Make us feel better?
Smart move, enough with the greedy ones that caused this whole situation. Best solution out there. I have 25 years experience as 50percent IT, 50 percent finance, this is the best product on the market, hands down. First fire Frank, this is the worst marketing job I have seen ever!!!!!!!!
Secondly, figure a way not to pay out TH. He doesn't deserve it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go private, Fairfax, you guys have it right! Yes, I will certainly switch to Z30, from 9900, even if it means a more costly, uncompressed data plan. One caveat, DO what you promise, when you promise it.
Sent from PlayBook, bought on day one. I expected this and as a shareholder nor do I care to hear what they have to say. I do not need an explanation of every little detail that just happened as it won't change a thing. If another bid comes in then we will know this was a low ball offer if not. Fair deal IMO.
I mean what more do you want? The market has spoken I wasn't looking to get rich and will lose a bit of money if this deal goes through.
I knew I was taking a chance when I bought the shares and was prepared that they wouldn't pay off. Overall I'm more concerned that BlackBerry moves forward and continues on in way that keeps people employed in Canada and I will always use there products as long as they are available. Posted via Z10. They couldn't execute anything right to sell the new platform and phones, but they sure can execute flawlessly their Plan B (or was it always the Plan A or the only plan for the turnaround) to steal the company for the inner circle buddies at a great price.
Now shareholders won't have a chance to question the board why they rushed to accept the only bid if there are no other bids on offer. Since there is no risk of a hostile take over, they should have waited and turn it down if there are no competing bids. Corporate sales should be ramping up now that most are back from summer vacation. This quarter (September to November) can be the turning point of the turnaround but now we'll never know. Financial results will be released, this is a requirement, the conference call is not. I expected this, keeps the drama, which is not logical or rational away from the business of this deal, smart move actually from BlackBerry.
And since when has the average shareholder of say a few thousand shares been allowed to ask the executive questions on an earnings call? All shareholders will be sent a letter to vote on the deal, contact investor relations with BlackBerry for information before hand.
The sticks are yours and its your responsibility to ask questions. Posted via CB10. For all those who lost on BBRY I feel terrible for you and am praying for you and your families. On a side note didn't they say the report was going to be bad just before bbm came out? So messes up love all my BlackBerry devices and so does my gf, she's as fanatical about em as me and keeps asking 'is there gonna be a BlackBerry 10 slider? ' and I tell her 'in time baby in time'. Idk kinda a random post just upset about the recent events and BlackBerry 10 not blowing up in the us like it should have if we didn't have to do all the marketing for rim(bbry).
BlackBerry ftw. Posted via my DizBerryZ10 (8830,9330,9500,9550,9930,PlayBook). More disappointing news (yawn). Given the stock sell-off this week it would be almost laughable if Fairfax did buy BB at $9 a share. I expect the initial buyout to fail on finance now and BB be sold to another for more, yes more, if BB gets its head out its ass and completes the cross-platform launch coupled with a successful 10.2 roll-out globally.
I for one will be buying two Z30s! BUT if BB fails on cross platform and 10.2 smooth roll-out then I a lifelong BB customer and current stock holder have to admit I will take the loss and move on when the time comes. Fairfax already has 10% of the shares. And BlackBerry has enough cash to cover another 50%. So he only really needs between $1 and $2 billion to buy it outright. Get a couple of existing investors to join his group and he'll need less.
Given that BlackBerry patents are probably worth $9 a share I doubt he'll have much trouble raising finance. I assume the story about him not having finance allowed someone somewhere to make money manipulating the stock. Their last chance to talk it down before it goes private. Given the staff cuts the burn through must be significantly reduced. And the cash remains in the company. The key is to continue generating cash, which again given the staffing cuts shouldn't be a problem even at the current sales volumes.
If you look at the numbers released last Friday, despite woeful sales, operations wise they really didn't perform that badly. It was the massive write down that caused the huge loss. A write down that leaves them with 2 million up to date phones they can give away once they're private. They've essentially valued a $1 billion dollar asset as $0. When they sell those phones - even at a minimal value - they'll declare a profit.
If they can use the phones as bait to attract people to the Z30, they could do very nicely. Not that we'd know once they're private of course. Naturally you have to first arrange financing for the full amount.
But the cash represents an asset and I would imagine could be used as collateral. The implication being that he only has to find value to the sum of $1 or $2 billion in BlackBerry to provide collateral for the remaining amount required. Even a conservative estimate of IP asset value exceeds that amount and that doesn't take into account other aspects of the business. My point being that I wouldn't have thought it would be too difficult to borrow the cash to buy given the real value of the company is probably around $20-$30 a share (assuming they get their costs sorted), and $9 a share is a steal. Of course shareholders can be on the call. In fact anyone with a phone can be on the call as it is a public company.
In practice analysts take over because they are in business to be right in front of the company to form and sell their opinions. And as long as it is a public company they.should. (but don't have to) have quarterly conference calls. But let me reiterate what I said immediately following the offer to take BlackBerry private so we can infer why the call was cancelled: 'The patents and other intangible assets were not written down (materially) otherwise that would have been announced as an additional source of losses in Friday's earnings pre-announcement. But I've been wrong before when it comes to what BlackBerry must announce and when they actually get around to announcing it.
If, however, there does turn out to be a large write-down of intangible assets between now and when they report officially there is something very fishy going on. The board should not, in good faith, recommend shareholders accept an offer that comes in below the value of the net cash and assets that they have been claiming are there this whole time - their fundamental fiduciary duty is to get a fair value or else say no.
The only way that directors can justify the low bid we see here as being 'fair value' is if they start writing things down retroactively to make the numbers work. If that happens then you will know the fix is in (in which case directors would be opening themselves up to personal liability). Unless, of course, the massive inventory writedown was pushed through this quarter to achieve the same effect. It will be interesting to see all the numbers on Friday and how strongly the board pushes for accepting a $9 offer.' But now the call is cancelled.
I wonder what it is that they don't want to talk about? Oh, I don't know. Maybe how they can justify accepting a low offer. I'm guessing their case is pretty weak.
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I would not want to be affiliated in any way with that board right now. At least they are smart enough to not expose themselves to any more personal liabilities than necessary. And that's just with the status quo. If things have changed and the loss turns out to be bigger than what was pre-reported because of a write-down of intangibles. Someone is in serious trouble.
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I forgot to mention that it's OK for these same BlackBerry users to watch Netflix on their laptops though. The thing is: Netflix movie streams magically cost Netflix more money if they go to a BlackBerry phone than if they go to a PC, or iPhone, or Android phone, DVD player, or Smart TV. They have to send BlackBerry phones 'special BlackBerry data' that costs more than 'regular data' (don't let the fact the data streams are identical fool you!) And the zero support you get for Netflix on a BlackBerry also magically costs Netflix more than the actual support you get on any other platform.;) Posted via CB10 on my BlackBerry Z10. It's sitting in a drawer collecting dust. I'm using my new iPhone 5c. If someone like me, who has always been a huge BlackBerry supporter and user, has already given up on the Q10. There's a reason why the company sank, and it has nothing to do with the media.
The Q10 was a glitchy, inferior product (my browser stopped working twice, requiring a full system reset/erase among other things). BlackBerry has consistently made abysmal decisions over the last couple of years (shockingly bad) - anyone enjoying their new cross-platform BBM? That's it, rant over. I'm enjoying my new iPhone (and yes, it can just get things done, too).