The Software Architect Elevator: Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise 1st Edition

by Gregor Hohpe (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-1492077541

ISBN-10: 1492077542

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As the digital economy changes the rules of the game for enterprises, the role of software and IT architects is also transforming. Rather than focus on technical decisions alone, architects and senior technologists need to combine organizational and technical knowledge to effect change in their company’s structure and processes. To accomplish that, they need to connect the IT engine room to the penthouse, where the business strategy is defined.

In this guide, author Gregor Hohpe shares real-world advice and hard-learned lessons from actual IT transformations. His anecdotes help architects, senior developers, and other IT professionals prepare for a more complex but rewarding role in the enterprise.

This book is ideal for:

Software architects and senior developers looking to shape the company’s technology direction or assist in an organizational transformation
Enterprise architects and senior technologists searching for practical advice on how to navigate technical and organizational topics
CTOs and senior technical architects who are devising an IT strategy that impacts the way the organization works
IT managers who want to learn what’s worked and what hasn’t in large-scale transformation

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About the Book

Architects play a critical role as a connecting and translating element, especially in large organizations where departments speak different languages, have different viewpoints, and drive toward conflicting objectives. Many layers of management only exacerbate the problem as communicating up and down the corporate ladder resembles the telephone game. The worst-case scenario materializes when people holding relevant information or expertise aren’t empowered to make decisions, whereas the decision makers lack relevant information. Not a good state to be in for a corporate IT department, especially in the days when technology has become a driving factor for most businesses.

The Architect Elevator

Architects can fill an important void in large enterprises: they work and communicate closely with technical staff on projects, but are also able to convey technical topics to upper management without losing the essence of the message (Chapter 2). Conversely, they understand the company’s business strategy and can translate it into technical decisions that support it.

If you picture the levels of an organization as the floors in a building, architects can ride what I call the architect elevator: they ride the elevator up and down to move between a large enterprise’s board room and the engine room where software is being built. Such a direct linkage between the levels has become more important than ever in times of rapid IT evolution and digital disruption.

Stretching the analogy to that of a large ship, if the bridge officers spot an obstacle and need to turn the proverbial tanker, they will set the engines to reverse. But if in reality the engines are running full speed ahead, a major disaster is preprogrammed. This is why even old steamboats had a pipe to echo commands directly from the captain to the boiler room and back. In large enterprises architects need to play exactly that role!


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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gregor Hohpe helps business and technology leaders transform not only their technology platform, but also their organization. Riding the Architect Elevator from the engine room to the penthouse, he assures that corporate strategy lines up with the technical implementation and vice versa.

He has served as Smart Nation Fellow to the Singapore government, as technical director in Google Cloud’s Office of the CTO, and as Chief Architect at Allianz SE, where he oversaw the architecture of a global data center consolidation and deployed the first private cloud software delivery platform. Having worked for both digital native companies and traditional enterprise IT allows him to reveal the many misconceptions that these organizations have about each other in the form of pointed anecdotes harvested from the daily grind of IT transformation.

Gregor is known as coauthor of the seminal book Enterprise Integration Patterns (Addison-Wesley), which is widely cited as the reference vocabulary for asynchronous messaging solutions. His articles have been featured in numerous publications, including Best Software Writing (Apress), selected and introduced by Joel Spolsky, and 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know (O’Reilly), by Richard Monson-Haefel.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (May 5, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1492077542
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1492077541
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.76 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #172,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #54 in Computer Hardware Design & Architecture
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- #99 in Computer Systems Analysis & Design (Books)

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Gregor Hohpe

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Gregor Hohpe advises CTOs and technology leaders in the transformation of both their organization and technology platform. Riding the Architect Elevator from the engine room to the penthouse, he assures that corporate strategy connects with the technical implementation and vice versa.

Gregor has served as Smart Nation Fellow to the Singapore government, as technical director in Google Cloud’s Office of the CTO, and as Chief Architect at Allianz SE, where he oversaw the architecture of a global data center consolidation and deployed the first private cloud software delivery platform.

Gregor is a widely recognized thought leader on asynchronous messaging and service-oriented architectures. He co-authored the seminal book 'Enterprise Integration Patterns' (Addison-Wesley, 2004), followed by "Integration Patterns" and "Enterprise Solution Patterns", both published by Microsoft Press. He was nominated a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) Solution Architect for his contributions to the developer community and recognized as an active member of the patterns community by the Hillside Group. In 2005, Joel Spolsky selected Gregor's article 'Starbucks Does Not Use Two-phase Commit' for his 'Best Software Writing' (APress).

Gregor speaks regularly at technical conferences around the world. He likes to cut through the hype surrounding service-oriented architectures and captures nuggets of advice in the form of design patterns that can help developers avoid costly mistakes. Find out more about his work at eaipatterns.com and architectelevator.com

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Amazon Customer

Terribly Insightful

Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2020

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Not only “The Architect Elevator” is skilfully written,
it also packs a life time experience dealing with abstract and complex problems:

Organisational Behaviour , Technical Disruption, Bleeding Edge Technologies, Resistance to Change, Human Psychology...

It is like you mix Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, with some Harvard Business books and the latest by O’Reilly in Devops...all woven together by a seamless , coherent and fun narrative.

If you are serious about your IT Architect career, and have already hit a glass ceiling after mastering your technical stuff, this is the book that will push you forward...and above!

5 people found this helpful

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Robert Neiman

Great book about EAs role in Digital Transformation

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2021

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This is a great book about EA! Well thought out, with instructive stories from a successful leader in the EA space. While much information in the book could be found with a search engine and enough time, the value of this book comes from its collection of insights into points of view and understanding tradeoffs that are critical for EA's contribution to successful digital transformation.
The book is very useful to a technician or technically focused architect who is transitioning to EA, or an experienced architect dealing with changes brought on by digital transformation.

One person found this helpful

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Ben Twain

Meh

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2021

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Expected to like it more. Little knowledge gained, though I do like the metaphor of the elevator, and found some helpful quotes regarding ESBs.

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Anton

Vast amount of valuable experience

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2021

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IT industry is full of books about patters, technics, technologies and processes. There are also separate books on communication, leadership, coaching and so on. While these are all very valuable and help you build your skills, you need an experience to make it stick together and be useful. Gregor Hope shared a lot of his personal experience in a well structured and easy to consume manner. It's just great.

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Cliente de Kindle

In a digital transformation time, the Software Architect Elevator is a must!

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2020

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I loved every single part of this book, not only Gregor has so many insights and guidance for us architects that are part of big enterprises making the change to Digital Companies, but he is able to make it entertaining! Strongly recommended, a book that will be key in this turning point in the world of big companies.

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TipCoffee

Excellent read

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2021

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Brilliant book, a must read for any Architect working in a large organization.

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lots a good points

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2021

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- nothing that I wasn’t familiar with before but a lot of good points. I recommend for anyone who wants to level up your career.

One person found this helpful

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The ("enterprise-scale") architect elevator

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2021

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While the title of this book makes use of the term "software architect", connotations will likely arise for many potential readers. Hohpe starts discussing the term "architect" at the outset, but it isn't until the end of chapter 4 ("Enterprise Architect or Architect in the Enterprise?") where he makes an attempt to simplify what he means with respect to this book, following his discourse on "enterprise architect(ure)". "My definition of EA also implies that some IT architects, who aren't enterprise architects, work at enterprise scope. These are largely the folks I refer to in this book. Because they are the technical folks who have learned to ride the elevator (chapter 1) to the upper floors to engage with management and business architecture, they are a critical element in any IT transformation."

"How is being an 'enterprise-scale architect' different from a 'normal' IT architect? First, everything is bigger. Many large enterprises are conglomerates of different business units and divisions, each of which can be a multibillion-dollar business and can be engaged in a different business model. As things get bigger, you will also find more legacy: businesses grow over time or through acquisitions, both of which breed legacy. This legacy isn't constrained to systems, but also to people's mindsets and ways of working. Enterprise-scale architects must therefore be able to navigate organizations (chapter 34) and complex political situations. Performing true EA is as complex and as valuable as fixing a Java concurrency bug. There's enormous complexity at all levels, but the good news is that you can use similar patterns of thinking at the different levels."

"For example, software architects need to balance their system's granularity and interdependencies: a giant monolith is rather inflexible, whereas a thousand tiny services will be difficult to manage and can incur significant communication overhead. The exact same considerations apply to business architecture when considering the size of divisions and product lines. Lastly, EA also faces the same trade-offs when having to decide which systems should be centralized, which simplifies governance but can also stifle local flexibility. Architecture, if taken seriously, provides significant value at all levels."

While I largely agree with what the author presents here, it's interesting that he includes "senior developer" in the list defining what architects are _not_ in his introduction to part 1 ("Architects"). "Developers often feel they need to become an architect as the next step in their career (and their pay grade). However, becoming an architect and a superstar engineer are two different career paths, with neither being superior to the other. Architects tend to have a broader scope, including organizational and strategic aspects, whereas engineers tend to specialize and deliver running software. Mature IT organizations understand this and offer parallel career paths." As a longtime engineer and architect who has seen and experienced a lot, I find it immensely beneficial for architects to not only have significant development experience, but have these skills close at hand.

Startups often have "senior engineers" but not "architects". During my career, I've been told by quite a few startups that they don't need architects. When I've asked them who chooses the tooling and technologies, who builds proofs of concept and prototypes, who designs their software and systems alongside other stakeholders, and who provides governance, they often draw a blank. In exploring their responses to me, it becomes clear that either (1) their senior engineers act as architects, or (2) their software and systems are already in production, and they are in maintenance or some other mode. The challenge with the former is that senior engineers often don't see the big picture, and the challenge with the latter is that software and systems should arguably be built as products, which means continued evolution should be expected to take place over time.

This book is presented in 6 parts: part 1 ("Architects"), part 2 ("Architecture"), part 3 ("Communication"), part 4 ("Organizations"), part 5 ("Transformation"), and part 6 ("Epilogue: Architecting IT Transformation"). Despite my prior comments, I think the ongoing industry discussion on the role of architects is desperately needed. I've read and written a lot on this topic over the years, so I especially appreciate the subtitle to this book: "Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise". As with software and systems products, architects should also evolve. The challenge here is that there simply aren't any industry standard definitions for many terms commonly used in industry, and this text provides a great effort at attempting to sort everything out. Much like the term "strategy", which I've also read and written a lot about, the second part on architecture follows closely behind the discussion on architects. And in my view, the topics discussed in the third part are the bulk of what tends to shy away some senior engineers from identifying as architects, as I have personally seen a lot of paper pushing architects in the past. As the book progresses into the last two parts, the chapters increasingly resemble disjointed, separately publishable articles, although the author makes a good attempt at tying everything together.

Hohpe actually mentioned when this book was headed to the printer that it is admittedly an evolution of the "37 Things One Architect Knows About IT Transformation: A Chief Architect's Journey". At the time, he also stated that the term "software" snuck into the title because he edited the book to appeal to a broader audience of not just enterprise architects, but software architects looking for their next career step. All of this said, this work helps fill a large gap that has existed for many years, and I highly recommend it. While much of what this book presents will be common knowledge to longtime architects, especially those who have worked as consultants in both senior engineer and other leadership roles, what has largely been tribal knowledge is now arguably under one roof. Of course, not to be forgotten is that Hohpe brings his personal experience along for the ride, and as with any great book of this genre, execution eats strategy for lunch.

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

An excellent book providing insights in to all the non technical elements of being an architect

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 24, 2020

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A very well written book, both accessible and concise. I recommend this book to anyone considering a move in to 'IT architecture' (regardless of what type of architect you intend to be) and to those who have already established a career as an architect.
I have been in IT for 20 years, 10 of those as an architect of one kind or another, mainly with enterprise scale clients. I found the book was at times therapeutic ('so its not just me!') , insightful ('I never considered it from that angle'), immediately applicable ( after reading a section on powerpoints I closed the book and immediately edited a executive level slide deck I was working on).
The challenge with architecture as a discipline, in my opinion, is that it is always different and dependent on context. This book does a great job of explaining what architecture means in large organisations as well as providing numerous ways to communicate your ideas.

2 people found this helpful

John

The New Bible for IT Architects.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 22, 2020

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It is rare these days for me to read a book from cover to cover. This was a welcome exception. Very well written. Engaging throughout with many useful insights into what architecture is and what it means to be an IT architect in today’s world. I have read many other books on IT Architecture but this book’s chapter “Is this Architecture?” gives the best demonstration of what is and is not architecture in IT. I hope this book becomes the bible for IT architects like many other books have become the bible for their domains right back to “The C Programming Language” by K&R;, “Design Patterson” by the Gang of Four and “Enterprise Integration Patterns” by Hohpe & Woolf.

One person found this helpful

Nuno Abrantes

Must read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2021

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This is one of the best books anyone can read on the architecture function. It’s that good.

Matt

One of the best IT books I've read in my 20 year career

Reviewed in Australia on January 2, 2021

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I've just finished the Software Architect Elevator and I can honestly say that it was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I found myself smiling in almost every chapter because Gregor evokes really vivid images of the corporate IT world via simple analogies and personal first hand anecdotes. I've been craving a book like this for many years, one that not only delivers useful and practical advice in nearly every page, but at the same time entertains by telling humorous stories which really helped me to fully appreciate and remember the underlying message. The quality of the writing is exceptional and its clear that Gregor has walked the walk of IT transformation rather than just spouting theoretical 'advice' as so many other books on this subject do. I will be searching out and buying Gregor's other books and articles....

Brandon Nelson

Ride the elevator and don’t look back

Reviewed in Germany on December 21, 2020

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This book is extremely insightful and packed with interesting experiences and analogies.
There are so many personal, cultural, technical and organizational suggestions to successfully be a change agent and a value adding architect.
This book will help you to have the right mindset to successfully ride the architect elevator from the bottom to the top, driving digital transformation and making full use of technology and automation along the way.

One person found this helpful

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The Software Architect Elevator: Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise 1st Edition

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