Technical Architecture – IT’s output

What does building an effective IT organization require?

We’ve been asking and answering that question for the past few weeks (starting here, with business integration; last week we covered process maturity).

What’s next? Technical architecture, which is to say the stuff IT is responsible for building, installing, and maintaining. To line everything up:

• Business integration is how IT figures out what it’s supposed to provide to the rest of the business.
• Process maturity is how IT provides it.
• Technical architecture is what it provides.
• We’ll wrap things up with Human Performance – the factors and practices that make sure the best people are in place to make sure IT is integrated into the business.

I covered technical architecture in depth in my CIO.com feature, the CIO Survival Guide. The links are here:

• “Technical architecture: What IT does for a living,” 9/28/2021.
• “Evaluating technical architecture: 11 key criteria and how to apply them,” 10/27/2021.
• “The secret art of technical architecture improvement,” 11/16/2021.

So far as the processes and practices required to achieve and evaluate a strong and resilient technical architecture are concerned, these three articles pretty much cover the ground.

Bob’s last word: What these articles don’t cover is (blare of trumpets) … yes, that’s right: the importance of a culture of architecture to complement the culture of process discussed last week.

And I don’t have anything new to say on the culture front, so just re-read what I wrote there.

That makes this week’s KJR pretty short. Which is okay – I’m trying hard to follow a piece of advice I’ve both given and received over the years, which is that if I don’t have anything to say I don’t have an obligation to say it.

So instead, I’m going to give in to an irresistible temptation: an observation about Elon Musk’s decision to re-brand Twitter as “X”.

My take, based on nothing but speculation, is that Elon Musk must be the smartest person in the room, no matter what the room is, who’s in it, and what they’re talking about.

Among the consequences is an inability to recognize anyone else’s good ideas.

So I’m imagining a meeting of Twitter’s executive leadership team. The subject is how to turn Twitter into a going concern. Of the ideas floated around, the only one Musk could put his name on is changing Twitter’s name and brand.

Because it was Musk’s idea, it was, by definition, brilliant! Also the only brilliant idea spoken, a natural consequence of Musk having to be the smartest person in the room.

Again, I’m just speculating. But on the other hand, can you offer a plausible alternative explanation?

This week in CIO.com’s CIO Survival Guide: “7 IT consultant tricks CIOs should never fall for.” Fixing what’s broken by breaking what’s fixed plus 6 other common consulting misdeeds.