Shownotes
The episode explores the tension between necessary on-the-spot decision-making during a software incident and subsequent organizational governance. Andrea’s story sets the scene: a colleague makes a critical, correct decision under pressure, only to have a later, higher-level investigation reverse it without adequately addressing the systemic issue that caused the incident, leading to frustration and burnout. We then further discuss how organizations—whether centralized or decentralized—often struggle with decision paralysis and the human consequences of chronic underinvestment in long-term fixes. The conversation emphasizes that true decentralized architecture requires not only empowering individuals to act but also leadership allyship and robust, non-weaponized processes to support and record their actions.
The core of the governance solution lies in documenting decisions effectively and creating a culture of learning over blame. To avoid "decision paralysis" and preserve the historical context, the hosts advocate for recording critical choices using Architectural Decision Records (ADRs). A key principle is that these records should be immutable; any subsequent change must be documented as a new, superseding decision rather than reopening the original. Furthermore, decision-making health can be assessed both quantitatively (by measuring flow and reversal rates) and qualitatively, by including sense-making questions about team readiness and feelings toward the decision, drawing on insights from practitioners like Rebecca Wirfs-Brock. This approach transforms governance from a bureaucratic bottleneck into a feedback loop that highlights deeper systemic failures.
Key Takeaways for Architectural Governance
- Immutable Decisions: Decisions recorded in ADRs must be treated as read-only history. Reversals or changes should always be documented as new, superseding decisions to prevent "decision paralysis."
- Leadership Allyship: Managers should use their political capital to support and empower the team's expert decisions, acting as facilitators and advocates rather than simply taking over.
- Systemic Focus: Governance must move beyond validating individual actions to addressing the root causes of repeated incidents and failures to prevent team burnout.
- Decision Metrics: Measure the health of the decision-making process both quantitatively (number of decisions, time to decide, rate of reversals) and qualitatively (team's emotional readiness/frustration).
Transcripts
Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Welcome
back everyone to this another
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episode of facilitating Stories on
Software Architecture and Design.
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So we are gonna talk today with
Andrea, who's gonna tell us a story,
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and with us is Andrew as well.
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Hello Andrew.
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this content series, which we don't give
it a name, we don't call it a podcast or
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a flog or anything, it's just a series
of, conversations about stories where you
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might be an architect or a designer that
believe that we need to do decentralized
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decision making or facilitating
software architecture, but you struggle.
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And these are all stories about
these struggles that we on a
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daily basis still have as well.
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So it's also a little bit for us.
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We learn a lot.
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in the previous episode, we
say, well, as long as nobody's
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listening, doesn't matter.
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We're learning, so we hope
you are learning as well.
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So, Andrea, it's up to
you to tell a story.
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Andrea Magnorsky: It's my turn
to tell a story and I'm switching
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Tuck a little bit, as I tend to do.
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And, what I'm gonna give you is, a
scenario then I'm, of wanna ask some
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questions and how would you go about it?
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So this is the scenario.
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Imagine you just arrived at work
and you're doing work stuff, and
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suddenly there's a, a ping in your
whatever messaging platform you use
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for, communicating with your people.
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And in there, there's an incident
like a high importance incident.
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One of your colleagues.
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Goes off, investigates, you're like
up in your hand and they're fine.
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And then during thing, colleague,
decides to stop something.
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They're like, this client can't do X.
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That's their decision.
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And it's in the middle an incident.
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That's what happens that time.
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Because it's a high, important instance.
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the very next day, let's say there's a
meeting with your colleague, yourself,
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and a few other peoples that are higher
in the hierarchy to review this and other
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things during that scenario, the review
is that the action that your colleague
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took was correct, which is an interesting
point that you might, want to, comment on.
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then, that's where it stays.
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However, there is an obvious thing
that, people that are in the hierarchy
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a little bit higher than you, they want
to investigate further to see if this
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is something like, what do we do next?
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Okay, this was the good decision for
now, but what do we do in the future?
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Someone volunteers to
do the investigation.
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Another one of your colleagues, they go
off into it and they come back saying
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that actually we should allow it.
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There's another meeting.
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This same group where this happened,
communicates to the rest of us that
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the decision has been reverted and
actually precisely the thing that
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was stopped is with no change.
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The only thing that
changes the understanding.
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The hierarchy, has, but with not a,
a lot, extra context, but not much.
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Your colleague is, not completely
impressed because they are,
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well, this is gonna happen again.
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That's the context.
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That's the story.
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The story obviously, I
mean, I'm sure it happens.
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Something similar, probably
happened to you, so.
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This question that I'm gonna
pose is about governance.
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We were talking about it a little
bit in the previous episode.
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And so also about how to, how
would you deal with this or what
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could happen in option A, a very
autocratic kind of centralized place
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versus b, more decent central place.
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Like, can we, can we talk
about the whole experience?
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Like incidents happen all the time.
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You make decisions, None of
those things are, strange and they
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will happen in both, scenarios.
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But I would love to hear about,
how things could be different or
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the same, like any similarities and
differences is where we should top off.
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especially focusing on governments.
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Whoever wants to go first.
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Andrew Harmel-Law: The only thing I
wanted to say that I think you implied
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happened, but one of the biggest things
that I make sure is like, maybe you
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have to retrospectively create it,
you document each decision separately.
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So you write an a, DR
maybe retrospectively.
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'cause the person didn't have time.
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They just, you know, based on
the things they knew at the
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time, they took a decision.
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so that should be represented in a DR.
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Then the revisiting of that
decision shouldn't reopen that.
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A DR, after they're decided
acted upon ADR is a read only.
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That's like a big deal for me.
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So then there should be a subsequent
decision, which supersedes the older one.
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So you've got the record of the
history and all that kind of stuff.
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when you, if you don't have that, if you
keep going back and reopening decisions.
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That's just like paralysis, right?
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And then it becomes very emotional
and all this kinda stuff.
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So I've got other thoughts about shelf
for Kenny, but that's the big one.
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It's like, right?
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'cause it's not like one decision you
kept going back to one was actually taken
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and then there was a subsequent thing.
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So that's, would recommend it separately.
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Andrea Magnorsky: Yeah, it's
more like the, I'm making an
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emphasis on a few aspects here.
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The governance, the human story and
what happened, also what we like it
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to be different and how, and feels
like one coherent story itself.
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Like at the end of the day, the system,
has like is behaving in a certain way.
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that's kind of interesting too.
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That's the three kind of.
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That I'm seeing in the story.
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So I totally agree on the, on the
decisions themselves and that they
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should be not, not all encompassing
and, oh, actually, let me just,
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let me just one more thing and
then you'll never finish anything.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: I think Rebecca,
and we should invite her once she talks
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about the earliest responsible moment.
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You can take a decision, right?
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And, you have the last responsible moment.
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But the earliest, I think
she calls it earliest.
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but she says, take him
as soon as possible.
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And then you go into, Andrew's not right.
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We can take him now and then
you can supersede them later on.
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And I think.
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It's the same with coding, right?
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Make small codes.
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People are very afraid of
making a decision there.
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So that's the human aspect.
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For some reason, people are very much
afraid of taking smaller decisions
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or smaller changes for some, reason.
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and the second thing that, I
hear you say, and I'm curious
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and that's a question to you.
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I, she's not impressed by the decision,
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People sometimes see decisions
as a single thing in time, but.
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It might be many decisions.
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So for some person coming in and,
and maybe it's a new person, right?
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And they take a decision, but for
that person it might be maybe the 50th
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time that it happened to that person.
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Right.
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I'm not sure if that was the case here.
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Is that what, what you're, because they're
not, I felt they're not impressed, so I'm
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like, okay, that there's something there.
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Maybe, I'm not sure.
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Andrea Magnorsky: So, for some further
context, in this particular case that
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I'm thinking of, some of this comes as
a background of we're not investing in
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actually solving our systemic issues.
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And when there's an incident, we are
the ones that have to respond back end.
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this particular colleague was very
tired of like, well, you know, why
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can't we actually fix the problems?
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Why do we keep saying yes?
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And the pressure is always like, well,
because the market moves faster than us.
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Which is, I get it.
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Also there's a balance
there that needs to be had.
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You can only.
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Uh, plasterers over your wounds.
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So many times, if you keep
kind of going, like imagine
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you have a wound there, right?
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And it's not healing.
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And so before it starts
healing a little bit.
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Uh, plaster.
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Okay, cool.
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Maybe okay for now, but you have
to wash your hands, et cetera.
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Soon after you plaster, plaster,
plaster thinking, plasters, and at some
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point your hand actually gets damaged.
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I think this is the point at
which my colleague was when
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they were not impressed.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah, I think
that goes a little bit into hierarchical
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structures, and I have a little bit of the
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thing against, not against, but the, the
partnership of management roles, because
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what I usually see is that managers
are like, I'm in this position to help.
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But what does help mean?
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So that A implies that people need
help that's the first assumption
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I see managers take, do they
actually need help with this?
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And b, is it for me to solve?
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So, this is what I see a lot of
managers do wrong instead of.
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Asking first, okay,
where do you need help?
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How can I help you make this
decision better next time?
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And give people insight.
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They rather think, Hey,
I need to help them.
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That's assumption A, and then they
are already moving forward, so
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there's not even an agreement on
should we change or should we help?
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Someone's already moving forward with,
okay, then we need to go forward and that.
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That's like a mental
model separation, right?
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One person is like, ah, this was fine.
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We took the decision, let's move on.
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The other person is, well, no,
no, we're gonna investigate this.
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So it should be more facilitation
and collaboration in that point than.
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You know, it came as a news
flash a week later that again,
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someone else took the decision.
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And I've had this with a
manager that says, no, I'm
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not gonna take this decision.
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You're gonna take this decision else.
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We're gonna breed into the
systematic problem that
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Andrew Harmel-Law: Yep.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Teams don't
make decisions because they're, and
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then a manager takes decision, but
they're not okay with that decision.
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So
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Andrew Harmel-Law: Yep.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: that
manager actually took a stand.
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I'm not taking a decision anymore because
every time I'm just feeding the beast.
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Andrea Magnorsky: I think in this
situation it was, really hard
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to do anything that feels right.
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Basically, this is why I think it's
such a good place for asking about
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governance and asking about what
would this situation feel like and be
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like, and how can we facilitate these
decisions in a more centralized space?
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That's why I thought this is like
a rock in a hard place, right?
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So,
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Andrew Harmel-Law: I think
there's something as well
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about like allyship, right?
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And I don't just mean like, like DEI
allyship, like you said, Kenny, right?
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You could lend your political
capital or organizational capital
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or whatever, social capital to the
person making the decision and echo
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and repeat it as opposed to taking it
on, like make sure that the ownership
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still belongs where that person is
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the weight of your experience
and maybe extra context, right?
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Like, you know, this
isn't just happened once.
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This happens all the time.
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And here is me as a manager saying 30%
of this team's time is spent restarting
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this system because of this thing
that's, you know, and so therefore we
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know that, you know, the revenue from
various customers is, is super key.
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But also we know that the loss, you
know, there might be access and have
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privy to access to information, the
person just turning the thing off.
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Hasn't got, but they might be able to lend
that kind of political capital to stuff.
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I've seen the anti-pain where people go,
we are all in this room to decide, and
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if you don't decide, I'll decide for you.
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And the end result is no one
decides because they don't wanna
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be responsible because then it'll
ultimately go to the big box.
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Right?
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And then that drives
completely wrong behavior.
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So.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: I had some
very good examples early on in my
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career from project managers or
managers that did the Good King.
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I remember one project manager that came
to us and this was like a, like a, a.
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Banking industry where, where after the
crisis, where, you know, there was a
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project that they need all the information
to know that the bank is healthy,
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So then we had this project manager, I
remember vividly coming to us and he said,
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what do you think that is needed, right?
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Because the, COO thinks this and
this and we sat together as a team.
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This is what we need, this
is how we need to build it.
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So he asked us, he kept
asking question what we need?
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Okay, so this is what you need.
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Okay, I'm gonna arrange it.
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And then later that day he started
launching with the CEO and you
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saw him really influence as a CEO.
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And later on that day, he
came, okay, I arranged it.
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Let's go.
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I put full trust in you as a team, and
we were very successful because he put.
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That person enabled that
success to happen, right?
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They're saying, okay, this is a different
approach, but you're the expert.
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We hired us experts.
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And I think that's for any architect
in that role, that that's the shift
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in, so I've seen managers, you
can do, choose two sides, right?
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You can choose the side of the hierarchy
or you can choose the side of the team.
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Andrew Harmel-Law: Yep.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: my
main value based heuristic, I
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always put, value into the team.
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Andrew Harmel-Law: Yep.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: And that's hard.
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But yeah, being in a
leadership position is hard.
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So.
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Andrew Harmel-Law: the thing,
if you lose the team, right?
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Like maybe this time they, you know,
like your, in your example Angela, right?
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Maybe they go, okay, I'll just do it.
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And they go along with the decision,
but you are slowly losing that person's,
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Andrea Magnorsky: Oh no,
they're, they're gone.
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No, it's actually, in fact I think
it's kind of systematically designed
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so that people burn out after some
time and they leave and they can,
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there's enough time to replace them.
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Andrew Harmel-Law: So the people
who have been no longer, who
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don't have to live in this world.
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I mean, this is the thing, like what I
want, I dunno what it is I want to write
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about next, but like something about
the fact that we live in these codes,
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sociotechnical systems, that's not, we
don't pay enough attention to that, right?
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But it does.
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And we move in and outta it.
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We change companies, we change job
roles and we moved teams and stuff, and.
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Are big deals.
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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: We
don't pay enough attention to
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this systematic thing, right?
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There's this famous comic I share with
Evelyn Hin in our trainings that was
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like, okay, who wants, who has some ideas?
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And then someone says,
well, I think we know.
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Okay, more ideas.
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I think there's.
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No, that's shit.
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Come on.
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Keep sharing ideas.
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We're not aware of that systematic, so if
a person gets told like three times, no,
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of course they're not gonna share anymore,
or they're just gonna do what they want.
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I remember, people saying, yeah,
I'm just here to do my job and then
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I get back home, which is fine.
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But at least.
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Make it explicit how we're gonna do it.
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And I think consent is there.
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Good.
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How are we gonna work together, as well.
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I think that's the important
part is, okay, how much decision
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making power do you have?
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And this is what I talk a lot and we
tell in the book as well, I've been in
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this situation where, I was going to a
CTO and the CTO came in and sat me down.
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He says, Hey, you've been working for six
months now on this thing, and we're going
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to Azure, and I have this idea maybe,
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looking at the market, we should
move to Kotlin, for instance.
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I don't think that's a good idea
because everyone here does C and
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it's a whole different ecosystem
and yeah, we're gonna do it anyway.
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And I'm like, no, wait,
what happened here?
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You already took the decision
for yourself, and that's fine.
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You're in leadership position, but at
least tell me that you took the decision.
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Even though in your book, Henry, you
talk about decentralized decision and
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the advice process, you might not be in
that situation, but you can start writing
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ADRs and say, this is the agreement.
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This is how we are gonna take the, there's
several other options of taking decisions.
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And even though you don't follow
the advice process, you can
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at least make an a DR and say,
we're gonna follow this decision.
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Andrew Harmel-Law: 100%
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Andrea Magnorsky: I
have an add-on to that.
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what if that actually everything
is being documented, but
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listen to what I just said.
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Everything is being documented.
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So actually finding
something, finding coherence.
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It is, let's imagine that, not just that
it's being documented, but something else.
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It's kind of what if, the drs and other
similar documentation is being weaponized.
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I am adding to the, so how
would you decentralize there?
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'cause everyone's being
transparent enough.
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But that doesn't remove the
inherent problems this broken
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and hard place situation.
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So
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Andrew Harmel-Law: Hundred
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00:15:46,387 --> 00:15:48,457
Andrea Magnorsky: actually
what do you do then?
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Andrew Harmel-Law: I've
got opinions on this.
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Andrea Magnorsky: Okay, I'm all ears.
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Andrew Harmel-Law: so before it became
popular, I quoted, 'cause I think you
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00:15:56,885 --> 00:16:02,155
know this, the famous CIA, manual for like
disrupting, some people seem to think it's
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for disrupt, like it's for disrupting,
like, kind of, socialist bureaucracies
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00:16:05,865 --> 00:16:09,615
and like communist bureaucracies, but
like the patterns they lay out is like
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00:16:09,615 --> 00:16:13,455
just basically how to make everything
go really slowly or to like just confuse
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everything or just create loads of noise
and, and it's basically follow the rules
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to the letter and constantly complain
about things and write everything down
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and all these kind of things, right?
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So kind of.
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00:16:22,335 --> 00:16:24,975
Take autonomy outta the people
and put them into the system and
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then you weaponize the system.
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Right?
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what I do to do that?
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'cause people do this, right?
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And people figure out, I mean
like I've done it, right?
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Like if I'm like, this decision is
implicit, so let's weaponize an a d
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but making it explicit so that we can
say, right, we know we don't agree,
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but here it is, it's written down.
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the other thing I use though, and
I need to write a blog post about
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this, 'cause this isn't in the book.
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If you do the four key metrics for
decisions, you can see the broader systems
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like the, the flow of decision making.
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So in the four, four key
metrics of decision making would
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be the number of decisions.
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Per month or whatever time
it takes to make a decision.
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The number of, so instead of deployment
failures, it would be like decisions
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which are superseded, and then the, the,
the time to restore service would be
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the time it takes to come back, right?
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So then you would see how many
decisions where they're coming from.
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You could also look at like the
number of sources of decisions, right?
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How long it takes to go.
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So if it's very bureaucratic, they'll all
take ages and you'll see the same decision
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00:17:20,130 --> 00:17:21,569
being revisited over and over again.
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00:17:21,569 --> 00:17:23,579
And then you can step back and
go, this feels a little bit.
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00:17:24,734 --> 00:17:27,344
Weird, right, that's, this feels
like it's being weaponized, or
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00:17:27,344 --> 00:17:29,264
at least we're paralyzed even
if we're not weaponizing it.
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00:17:29,264 --> 00:17:30,944
We're just, we're weaponizing
it against ourselves.
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00:17:30,944 --> 00:17:33,045
'cause we're scared to
decide or something.
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00:17:34,035 --> 00:17:36,135
Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: I think you
can add that we use in the book,
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00:17:36,165 --> 00:17:39,375
so you can actually do a sense
making where you ask people how
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ready are you to make the decision?
361
00:17:41,445 --> 00:17:41,745
Right?
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00:17:41,775 --> 00:17:44,845
And then you can sense, we sense
make that, and we teach that.
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00:17:45,115 --> 00:17:46,525
People just, just start that.
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00:17:47,391 --> 00:17:49,581
Andrea Magnorsky: The quantitative
and the more qualitative,
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00:17:49,630 --> 00:17:49,781
Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah.
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00:17:50,107 --> 00:17:52,517
Andrea Magnorsky: Way to kind
of actually, look at decisions.
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00:17:52,517 --> 00:17:55,837
So that's a heuristic, Kenny,
since you're apparently today
368
00:17:55,837 --> 00:17:57,817
in a heuristic collecting mood.
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00:17:58,847 --> 00:17:59,137
Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah.
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00:17:59,138 --> 00:18:02,307
Andrea Magnorsky: when you're doing
decisions, make sure to, check
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00:18:02,307 --> 00:18:06,807
qualitatively and quantitatively
how your decisions are doing
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Andrew Harmel-Law: totally.
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00:18:07,368 --> 00:18:09,858
Like Rebecca is also like,
you should add an extra thing.
374
00:18:10,098 --> 00:18:12,198
I don't think it comes from Rebecca,
but there's some studies on this.
375
00:18:12,618 --> 00:18:14,748
You should add an extra field
to your ADRs, which is how
376
00:18:14,748 --> 00:18:15,558
I feel making this decision.
377
00:18:16,413 --> 00:18:17,433
So again, things right,
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00:18:17,514 --> 00:18:18,658
Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah,
that's the sense making.
379
00:18:18,658 --> 00:18:19,378
I usually do.
380
00:18:19,378 --> 00:18:20,338
How do you feel about it?
381
00:18:20,338 --> 00:18:21,118
Are you ready for the,
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00:18:21,217 --> 00:18:21,967
Andrew Harmel-Law: frustrated.
383
00:18:22,138 --> 00:18:22,348
Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: power.
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00:18:23,113 --> 00:18:27,043
I did it in a previous training where
I just teach them this media meteor
385
00:18:27,524 --> 00:18:29,113
developers, me and Evelyn teach that.
386
00:18:29,113 --> 00:18:31,183
And their discussion was like, huh.
387
00:18:31,514 --> 00:18:32,293
Oh, interesting.
388
00:18:32,293 --> 00:18:35,563
And then the decision got much more
powerful and they were like, ah, this
389
00:18:35,563 --> 00:18:37,333
is one thing that I can do tomorrow.
390
00:18:37,333 --> 00:18:37,633
Right.
391
00:18:37,633 --> 00:18:41,653
So adding these sensemaking to it,
and Rebecca talks about it as well.
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00:18:41,769 --> 00:18:43,820
Andrea Magnorsky: So there is
a few Rebeccas in the world.
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00:18:44,090 --> 00:18:45,290
And can we qualify
394
00:18:47,365 --> 00:18:47,655
just
395
00:18:47,714 --> 00:18:48,713
Kenny (Baas) Schwegler:
Rebecca Wirfs-Brock.
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00:18:48,729 --> 00:18:51,909
Andrea Magnorsky: Other people in this,
in this area, but I figured it was her.
397
00:18:51,909 --> 00:18:52,149
But just.
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00:18:53,599 --> 00:18:53,869
Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah.
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00:18:53,869 --> 00:18:56,658
And people who, so that's
another heuristic start
400
00:18:56,658 --> 00:18:58,039
following Rebecca Wesbrook.
401
00:18:58,099 --> 00:19:03,459
Now, she's got some good content,
and she started the dd meme, right,
402
00:19:03,459 --> 00:19:04,879
with a responsibility driven design.
403
00:19:05,689 --> 00:19:08,114
She started, it's all Rebecca's
fault with the RDD, but,
404
00:19:08,164 --> 00:19:09,814
thanks again for this episode.
405
00:19:10,144 --> 00:19:12,724
So this was the last episode
with the three of us.
406
00:19:12,754 --> 00:19:16,133
Next time we're gonna invite other
people to come up with stories,
407
00:19:16,133 --> 00:19:20,004
so, we have a whole list already
that we talked about in these last
408
00:19:20,004 --> 00:19:21,354
episodes that we're gonna invite.
409
00:19:21,774 --> 00:19:25,163
So I hope, everyone enjoyed again,
watching this, reading this,
410
00:19:25,163 --> 00:19:26,724
listening to this, whatever.
411
00:19:27,234 --> 00:19:30,414
Alright, we're trying to bring
the content the way you like it.
412
00:19:30,924 --> 00:19:35,484
If you like it, please follow us on the
podcast or on the YouTube and, give us
413
00:19:35,484 --> 00:19:37,533
feedback, join our Discord community.
414
00:19:37,533 --> 00:19:39,303
So you can go to virtual dd.com
415
00:19:39,303 --> 00:19:42,724
and there's a big button that you
can join the Discord community and
416
00:19:42,724 --> 00:19:44,103
you can keep the conversation alive.
417
00:19:44,264 --> 00:19:45,163
Hope to see you there.
418
00:19:45,433 --> 00:19:48,193
And if you have a story to
tell, come there as well.
419
00:19:48,193 --> 00:19:51,693
Start chatting with us and, we
can invite you to one of the.
420
00:19:53,014 --> 00:19:53,674
Other episode.
421
00:19:54,543 --> 00:19:55,444
Thanks, Andrea.
422
00:19:55,504 --> 00:19:57,694
Thanks Andrew, and see you next time.
423
00:19:58,039 --> 00:19:58,258
Bye.
