Pain to Pleasure: Thought Process of a Technology Architect

All creations involve pain. Whether that is creating a painting, an architectural diagram, designing an infrastructure or writing a blog post. The pain is more prevalent when you create something that is elegant and simple. In the world of technology, the ‘pain’ is proportional to the level of elegance and simplicity you create.

Set a timeline

80/20 rule. Allow yourself a reasonable timeline to achieve the outcome. Once you are clear about the timeline, set 80% of the total time as your target and aim to complete the tasks within this time. Allow rest of the 20% as contingencies, improvements etc

Why to what

Start with why. The first and the most important question to ask is why and the answers vary depending on who you ask. Though the question is less often a literal why, the answer could be in a set of business requirements or customer’s technical challenges or within yourself if you are embarking upon developing an app or a lab infrastructure.

Perhaps the most important quality of a product manager or architect is that she or he is always fully aware of the why. In a technical world ‘why’s’ may translate from requirement definitions to capability enhancements. Understanding ‘why’ forms the basis of the ‘what’.

‘What’ is the high level concept of what needs to be created. What you are creating needs to address the why and satisfy most, if not all of the ‘why’s’. This also forms the basis of a conceptual or high-level design.

What to how

Dive Deep. The ‘What’ of your creation can be compared to the foundation of a structure. It is important to get the foundation correct as it is harder to later change. However it is a good idea to keep an open mind and use creativity and leave room for future enhancements. Often you will find that there will be a need to include additions or features once you complete your design. Good understanding of the ‘why’ would help your creative mind foresee what these enhancements may look like. 

This is an area where you may find yourself going wild with your creation. It is important to bring the thought process back to track and not over engineer a solution. If you find yourself trying to boil the ocean, remind yourselves of the ‘why’.

Once the ‘what’ is clearly defined you may start the how. Personally this is the most exciting part of the creation process. The ‘How’ can be as detailed and elaborate as you may like, while maintaining the end goal of simplicity. Remember to take the perspective of the viewer (or user) while going through the ‘how’. When detailing the ‘how’ you may come across more questions, you may need to learn and develop your skills. Make your decisions of learning and development while being mindful of the timeline. The detail of the how will result in a well developed detailed design.

Revisit

Take a break, revisit. It is important to take a break at this stage and revisit your work to give you a fresh perspective of the work so far. Once again start with the ‘why’ and when you reach the end ask yourself if the ‘how’ satisfies the ‘why’

Target

You might not hit it the first try. If you are creating something to address a set of problems or the ‘why’s’, accept that you may not get to the perfect outcome. Not with the first try anyway. At some point accept that this is as close as you could get within the timeline. If what you are creating is for yourself and the timeline is reasonable getting to the targeted outcome would less likely be a problem. Allow yourself the rest of the 20% of the time improving or perfecting your creation.

Make it work then make it better

Nothing is perfect. Focus on getting the outcome first rather than getting each stage perfected. Getting things working is often the biggest challenge, yet a lot of people spend time perfecting things that haven’t yet worked. Remember the ‘what’ at this stage and be aware of what you are creating. Everything else, the beauty and the aesthetics can be added once you make it work.

The science and the art

Focus on both. To create something simple and functional requires a deep knowledge that achieves the outcome. It is equally important to make the experience enjoyable for you and your users. Presenting something complex in a simple way is a work of art.

The pleasure

Take pride. Enjoy the outcome of your creation, love what you created so you want to do it more often.