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Large software projects are living things. They grow, adapt, and sometimes run wild. The way we design them - and the way we design the organisations that build them - determines whether they flourish or wither. Over the years, I’ve come to see architecture not as a static blueprint or a master plan, but as an act of cultivation. This article is the first in a series exploring my personal philosophy of architecture: how we can guide complex systems, human and technical, with the same care and intention as a gardener tending a landscape. ...

Recently, I wrote my very first technology strategy. Overall I’d say the process went pretty well. Of course writing the strategy is intimidating to begin with, but once I started I quickly realised that the much more intimidating thing is actually working to implement the strategy after it’s written. I felt and still at times feel like fleeing to the woods to live as a wolf as a result of this realisation but I’m pretty sure my life insurance has exclusions for fleeing to the woods in order to live as a wolf. It’s not the family oriented response you think it could be, despite wolves being good family members that live in packs. ...

What if the role of the software developer is not actually about writing software? What if the most important thing I can do today isn’t to write a sweet recursive function that delights and confuses the next human that reads it in equal measure? As our industry has matured, the roles of technical staff in an organisation have changed. Increasingly, companies require that technical folk interact with customers. Some people like this. Some don’t. Let’s have a brief chat about the opportunities and costs of this happening and what that might mean for your progression through the industry and your life. ...

What do when you don’t know what to do? Even worse: What do you do when people are paying you to do things, and expect you to do things, but you don’t know what to do? Are you in a brand new domain? A brand new type of business or a completely new role? What about if you’re in a completely new industry? Having just started a new role, the pressure to deliver and deliver quickly can be quite daunting. Using hypothesis-driven processes in your daily life can ease the tension. ...