The manifold of Hats of Architects and Interweavers

The work of an Architects or Interweavers is often presented and advocated as being very specific. The focus of a work story can be on a single task, objective, kind of deliverable, practice, or style. The standard story frequently involves elements of being the one in charge and managing other people, design, create spaces, and the production of blueprints.

However, when one looks at what is actually being done then the situation is not so monochromatic. Architects or Interweavers do many things, wearing different hats. The many kinds of hats often makes it difficult to explain to customers what Architects or Interweavers actually do. Especially in relation to adjacent professions, their techniques, deliverables and values they deliver. Questions such as may arise:

• What is the difference between a program, project manager and an Architect or Interweaver?
• If a business analyst and a business architect use the same techniques what is the difference?
• A designer design, a strategist formulate strategies, a business developer develops business models, what do an Architect or Interweaver do?

The Work Oriented and Interweaving approach to Architecting embrace a human centric and evolved practice. A practice where Architects or Interweavers can be seen as wearing manifold of hats. Each hat is worn with an interweaving lens, focusing on what is salient and what weaves people together. A lens that aims at delivering benefits to people and work they do with others. The architecting and interweaving services are complementary and supplementary.

In this section we present a collection of wearable hats. The identification and organisation have been influenced by the work of Cliff Moser, who is the author of Architecture 3.0; the Disruptive Design Practice Handbook.

The hat collection help explain to customers what an Architect and Interweaver do, and their needs for architecting and interweaving services.

• Interweaver: An accommodator and helper that takes action to connect people, their work they do with others, motivation, creativity, aspirations, the possibilities of technology with the enterprise and its purpose; to make motivational, valuable, workable, acceptable, agreeable, feasible, suitable, and sustainable; to make fit, congruous, integrated, compatible, or consistent; to make agreement, in harmony, in alignment, in correspondence, or in conformance.
• Craftsman: A practical, skilled, experienced, and knowledgeable worker, on the professional and learning path from apprentice, to journeyman, through to master.
• Artist and Storyteller: An imaginative storyteller that generates novelties, creative insights, and visions, through comprehensive synthesis.
• Scientist: A performer of systematic methods, inquiry, analysis, and synthesis based on measurable evidence, aimed at acquiring or adjusting knowledge.
• Designer: An understander of human meaningfulness and needs that turns insight and the possibilities of technologies into innovative solutions, which are suitable, feasible, sustainable, motivational, valuable, workable, acceptable, and agreeable.
• Problem Solver: A thinker that uses intuition, logic, and techniques to create a solution for circumstances or situations regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with, or questions raised for consideration.
• Manager, Leader: A director and controller of coordinated activities in programs, projects, or other endeavours. A person with a high control or influence over follower(s), and can focus their attention and allocation of effort in order to achieve missions and objectives.
• Assistant: An aid and enabler that supplements, complements, and contributes to both work and deliverables.
• Advisor: A trusted suggester of practical, expert, and sound advice. A provider of information, guidance, recommendations, and answers to questions.
• Facilitator: A helper that makes something become easier for someone else, and that stimulates discussions, ideation, group engagement, learning, shared understanding, and the making of informed decisions and actions.
• Analyst, Evaluator: A student of the constituent parts and their interrelationships within a whole. Sometimes, a synthesiser and a combiner of parts into new wholes. A judge of something’s merits, worth, quality, or significance.
• Interpreter, Modeller: An observer that translates observations, signs, measurements, and thoughts into documents, illustrations, or models.
• Researcher & Developer: An explorer of new knowledge, tools, ways of working and thinking, and technologies to create new or improved capabilities, and to enable decision making and work.
• Paraprofessional: A trained worker who is not a member of a profession but who assists a professional.
• Empathiser, Arbitrator: An understanding and sensitive person that deals with project difficulties and problems, errors and omissions in work, and that settles differences or decide on disputes.
• Overseer: A supervisor that watches over and directs the work of others, as part of quality management, assurance, and control.
• Information Designer: An explainer, planner, and maintainer of information, data to a particular audience to meet specific objectives as part of knowledge and information management.
• Enabler: A helper that provides and manages tools, guidance, methods, frameworks, systems, data repositories, services, and other means to projects and managers.
• Methodologist: A designer, analyst, and evaluator of ways of working, work specifications, processes, manageable activities and tasks roles, and deliverables in highly coordinated, distributed, and networked projects.

Enjoy!