In this episode, Kenny and Andrea discuss how to move from a blocking, "ivory tower" or hands-on architect role to a more facilitating one. They explore the importance of transparency as a first step in improving an organisation's approach to software architecture and design. The goal is to shift decision-making to the people who have the most information—the ones actually writing the software.

Key Takeaways:

• Transparency is Key: It’s a great way to start improving things in any organisation. Documenting the decision-making process helps everyone understand why confident choices were made.
• The Problem with After-the-Fact Decisions: Writing down decisions only after they've been made is like writing unit tests after the code is finished. It’s more effective to document the process as it happens.
• Start Small with ADRs: Begin by writing Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) as a team or even with just one other person. You can start with a simple question like, "Should we use ADRs?".

Benefits of ADRs:

• Shared Mental Model: ADRs provide a clear, shared understanding of what was said and decided, reducing confusion and "hallway conversations".
• More Focused Meetings: Reviewing ADRs ensures everyone is on the same page, leading to more productive and less repetitive meetings.
• Explicit Decisions: ADRs make it clear who is responsible for a decision and its potential side effects.

How to Start:

Find a partner and begin writing ADRs for tough decisions in your project. Do it out in the open so others can see the benefits of the practice. This small, disciplined start can encourage others to follow suit, leading to broader adoption across the organisation.

Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Welcome

back to another, well, whatever

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we call it, we don't know yet.

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Right?

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Andrea?

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yeah.

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Yep.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: on facilitating

software architecture and design,

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and we have a new subtitle.

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yeah.

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And that subtitle is The

Realities of Systems Change.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah.

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And unfortunately Andrew isn't

here for the second episode.

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He's still on holiday.

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Hopefully enjoying himself, but he'll

be here next time he promised us.

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So last time we did a small

introductions on on, on why are we

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actually doing this podcast or video

recording, blog, post series, whatever.

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and we talked at the end, like today we're

gonna go dive into transparency, right?

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So the stories are all

about how to get towards.

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Ivory tower or hands-on architect

being blocking to how can I

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actually let teams start to do

architecture and not be blocking?

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Right.

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one part you last time

mentioned is transparency.

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So what, dive into that.

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What do you mean with that?

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yeah.

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And also I wanted to add to,

it's not just tower architecture.

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That can be what?

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Blocking on the flow.

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It's also, even if you have a more

hands-on architecture, it, both of

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them can be blocking in some way

because at the end of the way of

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today, you're kind of relying on.

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A small group of people being the

ones that make the decision officially

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right, even if sometimes they don't

have sufficient context or whatever.

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And sometimes they do, but

you know, generally this is

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where the blocking happens.

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So we talked about the

side effects of that.

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Let's not revisit, should we.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: No, and

I think a good book to dive into

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more is turn ship around, right?

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We want to make the decision to where

the knowledge and information is.

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So yeah, instead of being the hands-on

architect that has the information or

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the, the, the, ivory tower that has

the information, you think you have

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the information, but actually the

people actually writing the software.

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You have the information, you

want to turn that around and

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facilitate them making the decision.

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So that's

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yeah,

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: turn

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Andrea Magnorsky: teach them.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler:

yeah, we're gonna add

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yep.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: yeah, transparency

is a very important factor, right?

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yeah,

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: be becoming

that facilitating architecture,

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Andrea Magnorsky: absolutely.

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So transparency is a great place

to start no matter what your

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organization like which part of the

journey your organization is at.

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It's a good way to start improving things.

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Because decision making

is a process, right?

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So if you're in a team, imagine you're

in a team and you're like, Hmm, we

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need to make some difficult decision.

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Or imagine that you are a principal

or an architect, a hands-on and

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you need to make a decision.

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Or if you're a Ivory Tower architect.

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Still, you have this, oh, okay, we have

some sort of problem or some request.

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You need to make a decision, and now

you need to possibly find some options.

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You know, you need to first agree more or

less on the problem, which it could have

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that that's never not always privileged.

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Sometimes it's straightforward,

but sometimes it's not.

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But then you have the option making,

and then you have, you know, hopefully

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you get to choosing one of the

options and you make the decision.

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However, all that process can, depending

on decision, take quite a while.

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And the suggestion here, or the

story comes to trying to bring

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transparency to that process.

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And that means that whoever you are

in all of this, you can, if this is

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not happening in your org, you can

literally start writing it down.

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And the whole point of

that is to just add, add.

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It's like having a memory of

what happened, or at least

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the way you saw it, so,

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: everyone,

everyone has that experience, right?

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Going into a project as a software

engineer and you're like, why did

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they, why did they make this decision?

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I think everyone has that and you

actually want to know what happened.

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So you, you become sort of like

this, historian looking at why

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did they make this decision?

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And I think that's, that helps, right?

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That transparency to just look at,

okay, why did they actually make it?

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yep.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: What

happened in a conversation that

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they switched from A to B maybe, or

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yep.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: why haven't

they thought of option like this?

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Oh, they thought of it.

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written down now.

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So everyone has that problem, but nobody

seems to, not nobody, but it seems to be

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very hard to actually start doing that.

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Andrea Magnorsky: Sometimes you're lucky

and you have someone that was there

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and the problem is that if you do get

a story, that story might just not be

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complete enough, one easier way to start

doing this transparency thing for your

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future self is to write decision records.

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And so I heard about decision records

many, many years ago, and the first

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time I experienced them, it wasn't a

great experience, and that's because

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we were told that we had to do it.

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Right.

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So sometime at some point it's like, you

know, some reason, I can't remember what,

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what was the reason, you know, you need

to start doing this decision record thing.

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But that was it.

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It wasn't like

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Or like

a bureaucratic process, you

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Andrea Magnorsky: I.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: do this else.

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You cannot continue.

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Andrea Magnorsky: So, to be honest, I

can't remember if that was the ethos

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of or the origin of this request.

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And it might have been well intentioned,

but I think writing decision records is

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actually kind of not, it sounds easy.

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And when you read the history

of how it came about with the

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Nygard what's his first name?

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I forgot his first name, but the,

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah.

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Andrea Magnorsky: Michael Michael Nygard.

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So.

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He's said, Hey, really simple.

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Just write it down, you know type it.

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That'd be all good.

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But the reality is that now that's

he, he presented, or at least the

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way the model I had for decision

records is that you write them

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at the end, you decided on some.

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Database choice.

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Let's say for example at the end

when you finish, which actually

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probably took quite a little time,

you're like, we chose Postgres.

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Reason one, reason two, and you

put your banger in your rebook.

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But that's, I don't find that

to be the most useful way.

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What I find more useful is

to write a decision record.

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Process that you start from quite early

in the decision making process, and

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then you start adding all the options.

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And it doesn't need to be a long document,

it just needs to have the information,

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah.

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Andrea Magnorsky: the end.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: I don't

necessarily think the, I do

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wrote ADRs, but they weren't

enforced on me and it quite worked.

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the problem I had with it

is that it's after the fact.

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It's like writing your unit

test after your code worked.

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Right.

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for me, what you're saying as

well, a, it's transparency.

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If we dive into the transparency part,

what I see usually happening in a

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lot of companies now is that nobody

knows who can make the decision and

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nobody knows what has been said.

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And I talk to person A and they say,

blah, blah, blah, blah, and then I go

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to C and they say, yeah, but that person

said that and that person said that.

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So just writing the a ADR itself for

yourself and just say, well, you know,

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I've written down what that person

said, and that's this and this and this.

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You, you make it transparent

what people said.

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Of course I check up with,

with the people, right.

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Hey, I've written it down.

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Is this correct?

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Sure.

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Can I share it?

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Sure.

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And then, right.

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You want to have that consent

that it's shareable, but then the

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next time and in a meeting, well

actually the person said this and

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Andrea Magnorsky: Hmm.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: oh, what?

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But we had a whole different conversation.

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I see it differently, which can happen.

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Sure.

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Okay.

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Then we sit down together.

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Right.

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So,

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Andrea Magnorsky: absolutely.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: yeah.

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So I think that's the bit

one about the transparency.

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Just doing that already changes

what you were saying a lot.

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Just start writing them.

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Once you start making the decision and,

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Andrea Magnorsky: so one thing that

I find really useful is to if you're

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doing it as, some sort of group, because

imagine that there is some group of

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people and no matter what, your role

is in that and you decide to start

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writing this, but nobody else does.

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Not very useful or some better

than nothing, but still,

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you know, could be better.

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What I find more useful is if you

decide as a team, and again, starts

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on like start at a team level, not

like certainly everyone writes ADR's

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without any help or coaching or anything

more likely to fail, but if you just

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start with one team and go right.

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Let's write these ADRs and let's

have a decision record review every

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week where we go through the decision

records that were written this week.

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And the first ADR can be should

we use ADRs and the options for

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it and everything, which is nice.

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'cause what you, what

you wanna do is kind.

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Start doing the practice, right?

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So we're talking here about the,

how you need to facilitate the

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practice of architecture and, and

I think this is a prime example

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of something that's simple, but

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if you really foster it and enable it

about like what is a good ADR The fact

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that you should include pros and cons the

fact that you should it's very useful to

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include the opinions of different peoples.

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And this is really good advice.

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Like if you want an excellent summary

on what is a good decision record

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process that is in Andrews book,

which I hope we can discuss next

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time as, as well, when they are here

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: because I

like the way he adds the advice to it.

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Right.

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But

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Andrea Magnorsky: yes.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler:

come up to a good point.

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Whenever I talk to people like

this, they're like, oh, how

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do I start, how would I start?

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Well start small.

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So you were saying alone is okay.

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But I still think two people

doing it, you need at least two.

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It's also something that I was

researching cognitive sciences, right?

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If there's a norm and you're off the

norm, you think different, all you need is

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another person that has the same thinking.

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And if you both do it,

then there might be change.

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Andrea Magnorsky: Yeah.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: need to.

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And that's what I actually started doing.

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I did it with someone else and we

just started doing it out in the open.

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We also had the facilitating

architecture role, right?

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So I was not in the team.

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What happened was very interesting

is that they saw it started to work

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because we kept referencing and we

kept doing the discipline, and all

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of a sudden other people started.

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Doing it because they

say, well, I've had it.

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seemed to work.

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I'm gonna write one now.

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And that really, that was really helpful.

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And all of a sudden it was all out in

the open and people were talking about,

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well, have you seen what they wrote down?

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Especially the advice, right?

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People writing the advice,

start attacking people in it.

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Like you need to write

down your advice here.

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We just talked on the hallway, but

it needs to be in this document.

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I've had it with all these cheaty

chat and this gossiping or all this

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back and forth, just put it in that

document and it's just a shared

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mental model and just two starting it.

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Together, out in the open for

tough decisions and making the

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decision actually work and people

being happy that set it off, right?

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So if you are in either what you're

saying, right, if you're in a team and

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you're just two people starting it, or

you are an architect between the teams

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and you start it off, try to do it down

in the open, experiment with it safely.

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I think that goes with a lot

of architecture tools, right?

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It seems usually so big, but

you can actually make it small

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and start experimenting with.

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Andrea Magnorsky: I think one

thing totally all of that and

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the, the thing that really.

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Helped in this case that I'm thinking

about is not just doing it in the

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open and kind of coaching through,

like in, in stand up, be like, oh, we

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need to, oh, I'm, I need to do X or Y.

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It's like, oh, that sounds like

you need a decision breaker.

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And people initially

were like, okay, fine.

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But, then they started saying it, oh, it

looks like you need a decision record.

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And that's when they started really

seeing the value because I think one

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of the main things that it does is

when you're having the review meeting,

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the review meetings are super focused

because if people that are there haven't

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read the decision record, you're gonna,

you start it off and you go like.

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Have people, has everyone here read this?

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If people go like, yeah, it is

like, okay, let's just spend

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five minutes and read it quietly.

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So you read it quietly and, and

yeah, it would've been nicer if

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it was read before, but you know.

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We are where we are.

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So read the thing and then actually

have a discussion about it.

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The minute this conversation

or someone is like, oh, but

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what about this conversation?

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You can easily say, and

this has happened as well.

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It's like, great question.

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Sounds like you need a new

decision record or whatever.

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It's just not part of this.

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And also, during the decision

record, everyone can collaboratively

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edit this decision record.

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So someone is saying something about this,

it's like, oh, you know, Kenny said X,

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Y, Z, and it can be there and then, and

so it becomes this really rich thing.

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And the best thing about it all is

that you have less of the same meeting.

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So generally when decisions

are difficult, you.

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Wind up having the same meeting

like a bunch of times, or people

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kind of think it's not, no, it

doesn't happen, but it does.

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And some of that comes

to how we make decisions.

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It could be that this team is

used to the comfort of consensus.

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Some other teams are the comfort

of delegating the decision and

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somewhere in between and even kind

of surfacing us, like who should.

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Make this decision, but now

it becomes an explicit issue.

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It's like, for this decision,

maybe we're okay deciding, but

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this other one we're not sure.

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And then actually you're like,

oh, we don't know who should

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make like, and then you start

thinking, what are the side effects?

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What's the worst that can happen?

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And you start maybe going on,

like it's an explicit question.

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So it's also a decision.

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So it's transparency or rank.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yeah.

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And I think for the next part because

I think this is very relevant.

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So one thing of today's.

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Thing to get with start writing,

at least with, find someone you

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can start doing writing ADRs with.

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Use them for the whole process.

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Not at the end.

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And I think that that's

a you shift, right?

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Start it once you have the problem,

name it after the problem, and

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then start adding it while you

are trying to make the decision.

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And in the end you can do sort

of like, and that's what you were

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saying, like a refuse session.

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Now we should talk about this

in the next session, right?

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So about.

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Who makes a decision?

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What's his review session?

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Because that can also sound like

a sort of blocking gate keeping

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thing, but it shouldn't Right?

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It, it should be an advice thing and

not like we should discuss this first.

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It should be about learning

that, moment in time.

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There's many ways of doing that.

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Let's keep that to

another session as well.

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And one honest thing, I was thinking

about what I said earlier you are

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saying, well, don't just write them.

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Once you make the decision, you

write them for the whole thing.

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In the next session, I want to

invite Diana Mont our friend, right?

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Writing is thinking.

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she talks a lot about that and I

think it's the same with writing

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unit tests and then make the code.

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I think it's the same for me and I

want to explore that with Diana next

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time in one of the next session.

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Right?

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For me, it's the same like if you use

the A DR as a writing, as thinking tool.

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Instead of, we're just capturing

the decision that is a whole change.

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So maybe we can pick

up on another session.

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Yeah.

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Andrea Magnorsky: That

sounds like a great idea.

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I think for different

people it's gonna be.

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Be different.

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Like for example, I find modeling

really good for thinking.

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I find that sometimes I will write test

at the start and other times I don't.

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And it depends when I

do that, for example.

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So I think it's good to, I think

we're quite aligned, but not the same.

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And I think this is what makes

this conversation better.

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And also I think that when we're

talking about these experiences about.

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This experience I just talked about

and the one that you talked about,

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what I'd love to do with this series

of videos is that to help people

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that are anywhere in their, like

they're somewhere in this journey.

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That maybe they can take something

that is useful now and something

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that, wouldn't it be nice if it

was in some new way in the future?

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So to, it's like you're somewhere.

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Hopefully you take something away

and you can practice it, and then you

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come back and tell us how did it go?

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You tried something.

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I love to hear about that.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler: Yes, thanks.

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So I hope people enjoyed this

second episode next time with

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we'll have Andrew hopefully here.

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And please join us at the virtual EDD,

but you can also join us in Discord.

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would love to hear your comments

and feedback see you next time.

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Bye-bye.