You Don’t Need An Architect

Given the debate about what Architecture and what Architects do, let’s get to a fundamental question. Do you need an Architect on your project? No.

(Caveats apply)

Having effectively talked myself out of a job, let me explain the caveats.

If you have unlimited time and unlimited budget, then you can get by without having an Architect. Purely because you have the luxury of being able to make mistakes as you go along. And with no penalty in terms of time or financial implications for such mistakes, you can learn and evolve as you go along. So eventually you’ll find a workable solution.

But in the real world, it doesn’t quite happen like that. Despite the discussions going on around the internet, it’s generally agreed that Architects are a form of experienced developer. In general, the view I got from canvassing colleagues was that an Architect is empowered to decide the technical direction of the system.

How do they do this? Usually based on a wealth of experience built up as a developer. For instance, you wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) use SQLServer to send emails to customers. And you’d be missing the point of Hibernate if you decided that executeQuery() was your path to glory.

So in summary – at some level, an Architect is useful when you don’t want to explore all the dead-ends in a technology maze. But worth noting – sometimes we get it wrong! One of the indicators of a good Architect is their ability to recognise when they’ve made a mistake and tell you.