Architects should optimize the architecture scheme and intervene in architecture activities to ensure that the final delivered project can not only meet the established goals, but also adapt to the changing external environment. This process has a general guiding principle, which is to continuously inject external adaptability into the final architectural design.
External adaptability refers to an enterprise's ability to adapt to changes in the external environment and its ability to capture new opportunities.
Architect is a kind of technical function, so it also injects external adaptability into the enterprise by polishing the technical system. Of course, the function of an architect has its own particularities. First, an architect is not the same as an R&D manager. The latter has the responsibility of personnel management, so it can create value through talent recruitment, training and adjustment of organizational structure.
Then, architects are also different from developers. R&D personnel can directly inject external adaptability into enterprises by optimizing data models, algorithm iterations, code refactoring, and module upgrades. Architects can only inject external adaptability into the enterprise by organizing architecture activities and optimizing architecture design.
The technical perspectives of business, product, and architect represent three different levels of R&D activities.
At the first level, R&D activities are driven by business and respond to external opportunities directly under the command of business personnel. This group of R&D personnel is called business line R&D. In some companies, these individuals generally report directly to the business units. It is more common for the growth product and technical staff to report to the growth business unit at the same time to quickly respond to new business opportunities.
At the second level, R&D activities are driven by product planning. The product abstracts business activities into a set of products, precipitates a product matrix, and continuously polishes the minds of users through product operations. In this process, the corresponding technicians will continuously improve their understanding of the product, and amplify the value-added provided by the product to users through technical means.
The more common products include marketing products, supply chain products, logistics products, etc. In addition to the product features themselves, some purely technical means, such as marketing capital pool optimization, anti-cheating, supply chain optimization, logistics allocation, etc., will also bring new value-added means to the product.
The third level, R&D activities are architectural activities led by architects. Architects and R&D students made a series of abstractions on business and products, and finally formed technical products driven by technology. For example, workflow engines, risk control engines, policy engines, algorithm feature engines, and labeling engines all belong to this category of products.
Factors affecting the external adaptability of the technical system are as follows:
1. The impact of internal pressure in the enterprise
First, the pressure of business delivery time . Technical students are often under the pressure of delivery time from business and product students. As a result, it is difficult to guarantee the quality of technology, let alone the external adaptability of technology.
Second, the supply pressure of technical posts . In recent years, the supply of technical posts is relatively scarce. Many technical students frequently change jobs and work in a company for a short time. Therefore, objectively, they do not pay much attention to their technical reputation.
Third, the pressure of assessment . Many companies firmly bind the assessment content and assessment cycle of technical posts with their business lines. However, the technical capabilities that need to be polished for a long time can neither be paid attention to and measured, nor can resources be incubated. The result is that the short-term effect is very obvious. Naturally, technical students seldom pay attention to the long-term adaptability of technology.
In addition to the pressure within the team, companies are also facing a lot of pressure. First of all, time is a scarce resource for all functions. Most Internet companies adopt an iterative approach of small steps and quick runs. Few companies enter the market after researching the problem clearly. Everyone is learning by playing. Whether it is a business post, a product post, or a technical post, they all cross the river by feeling the stones, which inevitably leads to all functions being fettered by their own cognitive limitations.
2. The influence of the external environment of the enterprise
The most common external factor that weakens the external adaptability of a technological system is competition. Competition will disrupt the deployment and rhythm of enterprises, forcing enterprises to respond to changes in the market environment instead of doing their own business and products in a planned and rhythmic manner.
In addition to competition, there are other environmental factors that also affect the external adaptability of technology systems. For example, the popular trend of user demand, macroeconomic cycle, regulatory environment, resource supply, technology trends, etc., are changing all the time, which may also lead to the failure of the original external adaptability plan of the enterprise.
3. The impact of corporate organizational structure
The last category of factors that weaken the external adaptability of technology systems is related to the organizational structure of enterprises. Whether it is business line research and development, product research and development, or basic technology research and development, the instinctive reaction of these students is to maintain their own living space first.
In addition, because the internal goals, specific challenges, and resource environments of each field are different, the software architecture designed by R&D personnel in each field is naturally different.
In other words, due to their own cognitive limitations, communication limitations, or to protect the interests of their own teams, their designs are all locally optimal, not global optimal. This kind of local and global conflict is easily externalized in a large-scale cross-team architecture activity, resulting in the weakening of the overall external adaptability as the complexity of the organization increases.
Then, as an architect, you must create an overall design that can stand the test of time for an enterprise through technical abstraction, so as to inject external adaptability into the entire technical system of the enterprise.
This article is a study note for Day 11 in June. The content comes from "Guo Dongbai's Architecture Course" in Geek Time . This course is recommended.