How can you get stakeholders on the same page with system architecture?

The role of a system architect is to translate the vision of the stakeholders to the design and development/implementation team. The vision has to be as complete as possible so that the translation is effective.

System architecture answers “How” for resolving a pain or creating a gain for customers. So, Customers may not provide direct inputs in terms of technicality to System Architecture, however their requirements makes a vital input. Would like to classify stakeholders as Direct and Indirect and this will help in eliciting inputs towards Systems Architecture accordingly.

You must understand stakeholder goals, objectives and motivation when involving them with system architecture. Level of stakeholder interest in system architecture is usually directly proportional to amount of support system architecture can provide for achievement of his goals. You need to find allies with mutual objectives and identify persons to keep satisfied that could use their force against your efforts.

It would be good to see more of an agile approach adopted in systems engineering/architecture. Having a product owner as a representative of the user /stakeholder community is invaluable. Often stakeholders are high value assets that you don’t often get much time with, making assumptions on what they want is therefore dangerous. A product owner can be the voice of the stakeholders and bridge the gap to deep technical.

You can identify the stakeholders in the system by understanding its functionalities and the different objectives and quality attributes it touches upon. The stakeholders are the people or roles that represent those who want the system to achieve these objectives or care for the system's quality attributes. In some instances, stakeholders also include people affected by the system or the roles impacted by the system. Every stakeholder represents a different aspect/concern of the system. It helps you to converge and establish the objectives for the system. These objectives align with the help to identify the interaction points by different roles and functions in the organization.

First of all, let me express something: as a system architect, you must be on the same page with stakeholders AND development teams, being on one side is a big mistake. I really like V-Model and how it gradually dive from expectations to technical aspects of projects. As a system architect, the first step is extracting ALL REAL requirements of stakeholders and it takes time to be in the same mind space as them. So you can give feedback and show that you are on track with their real needs. Giving feedback can create a trustful atmosphere and a better opportunity to extract deep requirements. No need to mention: Stakeholders need to feel that you take care of all project aspects up to when product meets the shelves.

It is critical to engage the stakeholders in the process to define the requirements for the service, it will give you their vision for the future of the business and facilitate to them the understanding of the whole service and their future behavior; also allow you to clearly define the service requirements. When your design is ready to be presented, is critical to present your architecture clear, graphical and show how the whole system will be build and accomplish the organization goals and their individual expectations.

Endorse we need to communicate Systems Architecture and get feedback on their requirements and this should be done at right time. One more aspect we need to consider is how we communicate, as Systems Architecture will be more technical in nature. Ex: With Security advisors we need to communicate what security measures are considered rather than explaining how; With Customers need to explain how value addition is brought to the product by addressing Diversity, Flexibility , security etc.

Choose communication form and content based on your audience. When talking with business, focus on business pains and gains and how changes in system architecture can influence them. When talking with IT guys, focus on platform improvements and how to make their life easier. Security folks look on risks and enforcement of proper procedures. Everybody care about time-to-market and IT cost.

Being able to clearly articulate the architecture doesn’t mean PowerPoint presentations 300 pages long, it means knowing the audience and answering the questions you already know they have such that you’ve done the real work already. Having solid process and planning can help ensure you are covering all aspects, likewise leveraging good practices and standards which will quickly show if you have gaps. Like anything, repeated communication as it builds is better than a single big showing at the end.

What about documenting stakeholder expectations and making sure stakeholders review, approve and sign the document. Requirements, design and implementation need to be validated against such expectations but the SE process does not call out such a document. Requirements alone do not capture expectations adequately never mind associated assumptions. This is a problem IMO.

You have to be open to criticism and listen carefully their feedback, the success of this future implementation depends of how you improve your design based on the feedback received.

It is important to cater to expectations management, but it is not by explaining System Architecture solutions in literal terms as it is technical in nature and not understood by all stakeholders. Also, limitations and constraints of System architecture need to be communicated in positive sense. Ex: For the product to be cost competitive, certain technologies are not adopted or for a product to be business and market fit certain region diversity is considered for the features

To manage stakeholder expectation means to be clear about impact or needed change from him for system architecture change. You should explore boundaries of stakeholder willingness and capability to undergo changes. There are no changes that have no impact. Be clear what needs to be done and how stakeholder will be impacted. Set up continuous information flow so you can help stakeholders go through change on his side.

This is usually best when you repeat back to stakeholders what you perceived their requirements to be, before you describe the solution to it, that way you don’t dive into detail before you have proven you understand well the requirements. A good stakeholder will be interactive during the process.

System architecture development is a coin that has two sides. First side is architecture design oriented on qualities that architecture exhibits and possibilities it unlocks. You collaborate typically with business stakeholders when creating a vision for system architecture. The other side is architecture engineering, how it will be built and transitioned to. You engage mainly with IT and supplier people while developing blueprint for system architecture. You must ensure that architecture vision and blueprint describe same system, are in sync and are realistic.

I believe engage the stakeholders to collaborate on the system architecture should be the second step on the process; it will give you their perspective and requirements and avoid misunderstanding or confusion on the business requirements, and optimize the time expended in the design.

This is not a one time job, rather system architecture should evolve and at each logical stage of completion this step need to be considered

Collaborative architectures work well, but you often still need a strong lead and decision maker. There can be more than one solution to a challenge and more than a single opinion in which is the best. The lead needs to be strong enough to make a final call and explain the rationale. Collaborative doesn’t necessarily mean lots of people creating the architecture, can just mean reviewing or sitting in feedback sessions.

Collaboration is an extension of expectation management. Workshops are useful to present the initial ideas and then use brainstorming with the stakeholders to improve.

You have to remember that a business is an entity that evolve based on the stakeholder expectations, customers and market changes; your service/system architecture should be capable to adapt its structure and components based on these changes in a continuous improvement cycle.

Agree it has to be a continuous improvement, only thing to consider is one has to build system architecture in progressive manner so as to absorb the feedback received.

The only constant is the change. Ability to react on change in business needs, identification and evaluation of existing options and decision on best course of action is a sign of well managed system architecture. Of course you need to apply holistic assessment of options taking account of all aspects (organisational, financial, technical, risks) that are associated with redesign of system architecture.

Change adaptation yes, change for sake of change no. Clear goals to be set up front with recognition that changes to the goals have impact. Change is inevitable, but rarely is free of impact in terms of cost, schedule or other dependencies.

RASI chart - Responsible, Accountable, Supportive, Informed and Consulted - except supportive stakeholders rest all are constructive critics to your approach; informed stake holder can tell you about unknown Risk or Contingency if that person is aware; Risk tracking with weights involving all above stake holders is mandatory using risk matrix spreadsheet

The stakeholder is whoever is writing the checks. Can they see the data they need to make strategic decisions? If not, everything else is relatively pointless. The reality of systems architecture is that it's a complete mess for most organizations. It's a collection of tools constantly being engineered for changing metrics and KPIs that struggle to maintain org-wide visibility of key data for anyone. The overall goal = get the right data to the right people. No one system can do that holistically for an entire organization - system architecture should be built to include data pipelines and analytics that create accurate source of truth as early as possible. And EVERYTHING should include ecosystem/partner modeling from day 1. #soapbox