Sebastian Waschnick
Sep 6, 2018 · 1 min read

Awesome read and I like the concept and how you describe the different parts. But there are two points where I totally disagree. The first thing is that I like the role you describe, but calling it Software Architect is wrong and does not help the cause.

The word has a meaning. You even discribe what most people understand as a Software Architect. Having the same vocabulary is important. Reusing a word with an old meaning and trying to redefine it is a bad idea. There are other options to call this role. For example in the TPS the role you describe is more or less the Chief Engineer.

And the second thing: “By identifying and improving the weakest link, we dramatically improve the whole system.” Every book I have read and every concept I know disagree on this one. The throughput of the whole system is the imporant part. If you optimize one part of a system the throughput will most likely become lower. You can read any DevOps book like The Phoenix Project or books about System Theory. One example: If you have an Ops team, a Frontend team and a backend team and optimizing only one of the teams, then the overall output for the project will decrease. This is for me the most important part within the DevOps movement and about crossfunctional teams: Think of it as a whole system.

    Sebastian Waschnick

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    CTO at Axel Springer Ideas Engineering. Professional geek. I write about tech, culture and people.