Who needs an architect?

I just read the briliant article that Martin Fowler wrote "Who Needs an Architect". So do we need architects? Maybe thats true.... I think that depends on the role the architects plays in the project.

Fowler talks about the two different spieces of architects 1, Architectus Reloadus "the person who makes all the important decisions" and 2, Architectus Oryzus is the coach and the mentor for the developer team. He guides the team "to raise their level so that they can take on more complex issues".

This is interesting. Most architects are classic Reloadus. With a Reloadus in the project two scenarios could happen. 1, The whole developer team stops taking initiativs and waits for the architect to make all decsions 2, The developer team gets mad and tries to avoid the Reloadus. Both the scenarios are devistating for the results and the project.

In some situations the Reloadus are needed but most projects need the Oryzus to make the team become better. Fowler has an explanation of why Reloadus function that way "The architect does this because a single mind is needed to ensure a system’s conceptual integrity, and perhaps because the architect doesn’t think that the team members are sufficiently skilled to make those decisions. Often, such decisions must be made early on so that everyone else has a plan to follow".

I'm a huge fan of the Discovery Channel. Last saturday I saw two shows about two hot rod builder. One thing thats really hit me was the type of leadership the two hot rod builder had and what different relationship they had with there car builder teams. One of them sat in his office and make discissions he visit his team sometimes to see the progress and to say that the project was in a hurry. The team members manage to build the hot rod with an ok result. The team was pissed of the car and they didn't like the project. The other hot rod builder was building the hot rod as much as the other team members. He sometimes went away and came back with a sketch or a idea of what the they will do. One of the team members said something like "If he had the time he would build the whole car him self, because he think building hot rods are the best...". This team build a hot rod that won a lot of prices and shows. Of course there are many factors that affect the result and the team but the two styles of leadership was so obvious here. One Reloadus and one Oryzus.

Fowler ends the article with "One of the differences between building architecture and software architecture is that a lot of decisions about a building are hard to change. It is hard to go back and change your basement, though it is possible. There is no theoretical reason that anything is hard to change about software. If you pick any one aspect of software then you can make it easy to change, but we don’t know how to make everything easy to change. Making something easy to change makes the overall system a little more complex, and making everything easy to change makes the entire system very complex. Complexity is what makes software hard to change."

I have seen many software system made complex without gaining the positive of the complexity the ability to change.