12 More Essential Skills for Software Architects by Dave Hendricksen

Author:Dave Hendricksen
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Pearson Education Limited (US titles)
Published: 2015-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Platform Oversight (Steering Committee/Advisory Board)

The oversight of a platform is usually some combination of technology (including architecture) and representatives of the various business units that have an active stake in utilizing and improving the platform to meet their needs.

There is always a wide range of political issues that arise in determining the following:

Who decides what work gets done? Ideally, each of the contributing business units has the opportunity to “vote” in some manner on which capabilities are addressed first, and that in turn allows them to help prioritize and negotiate for the platform capabilities that are most important to them.

What level of the organization “owns” the assets? If one business unit “owns” the platform, the owning business unit usually appears to be getting an unfair advantage and access to the development team. One way this is typically addressed organizationally is to have a central development team that is not a part of any business unit own the platform.

What is an equitable means of allocating work? Some organizations may not be able to commit the same level of funding or resources to the development of the platform. The key is to ensure that those who are at the table determining what should and should not get worked on have committed some funds to the game.

Do you allow other groups to contribute work to the platform? Most platform teams are strapped for resources (time and people). If you allow others to work on the platform, you need to ensure that proper measures are in place to guarantee that the work being done is leverageable by all parties and not just a hack to meet one area’s needs. One way to accomplish this is to have a limited number of committers to the code base.

Can you open-source the platform? Depending on the nature of the platform, you may be able to open-source its development and let a truly wide set of developers have access to improving it. If, on the other hand, the platform is considered an internal strategic asset, you may not have an option to open-source it externally, but you may be able to open-source it within the corporation. If it is internal, you still need to work out the funding issue in terms of how people allocate their time when they are working on the platform.

How will you demonstrate business value? A platform may not directly generate revenue for the business, but there needs to be an awareness of how the platform contributes to other applications and in turn enables them to generate revenue. If you don’t generate revenue or contribute to generating revenue, you will be perceived as an expense. Finance folks don’t like expenses.

Having a solid model for platform oversight is critical for the long-term success of the platform. It can enable the changing needs of the business to be incorporated into the platform and, as a result, increase the platform’s long-term relevance to the business.

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