Consult and Coach

Being pro-active is probably the best you can do when it comes to consulting and coaching. If you are asked, it is often too late. And cleaning up on the architecture site is something which you want to avoid. You need to somehow foresee the next weeks, months or even years and prepare yourself and the organization for the next steps.

• Have a vision: If you are deployed in a project, whether it is a traditional waterfall like approach or agile, you always need to have a vision of your mid- and long-term goals you want to achieve. This is not a detailed concept, but more a road-map towards everyone can work. As you cannot achieve everything at once (it is a journey) I prefer to use maturity models. They give a clear structure which can be easily consumed and give the current status of progress at every time. For different aspects I use different models, e.g. development practices or continuous delivery. Every level in the maturity model has clear requirements which follow the SMART criteria in order to ease measuring if you have achieved it or not. One nice example I found is for continues delivery.
• Build a community of practice (CoP): Exchanging experience and knowledge among a common interest group helps distributing ideas and standardizing approaches. For example you could gather all JavaScript developer and architects in one room, every three months or so, and discuss past and current challenges and how they were tackled or new methodologies and approaches. Architects can share, discuss and align their visions, developers can share experience and learn from their peers. Such a round can be highly beneficial for the enterprise but also for the individual itself, as it helps building a stronger network and distributes ideas. Also check out the article Communities of Practice from the SAFe Framework which explains the CoP concept in an agile setting.
• Conduct open door sessions: One source of misconceptions or ambiguity is lack of communication. Block a fixed time slot, e.g. 30 min every week, for exchanging hot topics with your peers. This session has no agenda everything can be discussed. Try to solve minor things on the spot. Schedule follow-ups on the more complex topics.