Workshop details

This workshop introduces the core ideas of Architecture Organization Topologies (https://esilva.net/architecture-topologies). In particular, we discuss the importance of understanding how an organization approaches architecture and what it may do to (continuously) improve it. Organizations are constantly changing, and the approaches to architecture should reflect the organization's needs. As such, it is crucial to have thinking models embracing that. Those are vital to strive for a sustainable flow of change in the organization. In other words, sustainable design and decision-making across all the different scopes in the organization (team, multi-team, domains/departments, and whole organization).

The workshop will touch on different topics, including:

• Motivation and introduction of essential language and thinking models to understand and discuss the evolution of architecture across the organization (a.k.a.: architecture organization topologies). This will also introduce important foundational topics, such as sociotechnical systems thinking, team topologies, etc. (This talk provides a good intro to this topic: https://esilva.net/talks/#kandddinsky_2022)

• The distinction between architecture and architects, where and when architects may or not be necessary, how they could work and evolve their functions, etc. There is no one-size-fits-all!

• Group exercises on "understanding current approaches to architecture", including discussions on how participants' organizations approach architecture;

• Group exercises on "orienting and evolving architecture organization topologies" - how to evolve and improve architecture to support a more sustainable flow of change (e.g., distributed and coherent design and decision-making).

We will have different activities, including group discussions, practical methods, and ideas that participants can bring back to their organizations and improve their architecture organization operating models.