Politics - why bother? No-one listens!

No harm in starting with the most complex "P"!!!

For architecture(*) to have an impact, it needs to influence other disciplines - like project management it has no intrinsic value (yes, unless someone acts on it, it's just so much paper sitting on a shelf...); but unlike PM, people don't get it.

(*) from now on, please read " architecture" as "architecture and design"

"Do without PM?  You're joking!"
"Exploit architecture?  What good is that?"

But who are these people who should know better?  Put otherwise, who are our Stakeholders?  Who should be "buying" the products of our expertise?

There are TWO very different groups, with very different agendas that we need to intercept and often change, in spite of their often more narrowly and selfishly focused, politically (career centric!) inspired perspectives.

And in order to succeed, we need to recognise the need to "sell" in their language; we need to articulate our Value Propositions, i.e. the value they should expect from us; not (as we so often do!) the "features of architecture", expecting them to work out for themselves why this is a good thing - history tells us they never have, and they are unlikely to change.

So who are these two groups of stakeholders, and what are our value propositions to them?  I refer the honourable reader to an earlier post, way back in March called "Architecture also drives change", which discusses

"Upstream EA", guiding executives and senior planners to "do the right things"
"Downstream EA", governing development and deployment, to "do things right"

OK, so much for theory - how can this work in practice? We've not been to good at it in the past... The secret is to recognise that it is indeed the theory which drives successful implementation, but only if supported via sponsorship and governance...

...of both "doing the right things" and "doing things right"...