Engineering the Future of Software
29–31 Oct 2018: Tutorials & Conference
31 Oct–1 Nov 2018: Training
London, UK

Shaping and communicating architectural decisions

Seth Dobbs (Bounteous)
9:00–12:30 Wednesday, 31 October 2018
Leadership skills
 Location: Blenheim Room - Palace Suite
Secondary topics:  Best Practice
Average rating: ****.
(4.73, 15 ratings)
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Who is this presentation for?

  • Architects and tech leads

Prerequisite knowledge

  • Experience as a technical lead or architect

What you'll learn

  • Learn a process and strategy for effectively shaping and communicating architecture to meet the needs of different stakeholders, such as the development team, project managers, business owners, and designers
  • Explore techniques for clearer communication and handling conflict

Description

Success as an architect comes from more than technical expertise and solid ideas. It’s a leadership role that requires effective communication to succeed, a challenge which is made more difficult by the ecosystem that the architect works in. You need to get input from and communicate your thoughts to a wide range of stakeholders, including business representatives, project managers, development team members, and designers.

If you have trouble getting your development team to buy into your approach, challenges with having the issues you bring to the business owner being shot down, or disconnects with the design team resulting in being given designs that can’t be built on time and on budget, this tutorial is for you. Join Seth Dobbs to learn the tools and strategies to become a more effective communicator.

Topics include:

  • The role of architects and tech leads and what we need to communicate
  • Our different stakeholders and what they need to know
  • A process for shaping and communicating solutions
  • Different communication (and listening) styles and how to effectively alter your style to be better heard
Photo of Seth Dobbs

Seth Dobbs

Bounteous

Seth Dobbs is the vice president of engineering at Bounteous, where he directs the development of ecommerce, web, and mobile applications, digital transformations, and other solutions for numerous clients. This work includes architecting an ecommerce system that grew to be the fourth largest transactional commerce system on the internet. Seth sets the technology direction at Bounteous and drives the technical skill development by organizing and presenting deep dives into new languages, database platforms, and methodologies. He also has developed several internal architecture and leadership training courses and blogs. Seth was named Chicago’s best technology manager for 2016 by Tech in Motion. Previously, he was a software engineer at Motorola, where he was first exposed to complex architectures and where he designed and implemented a service-based framework enabling data services to be distributed and recoverable across multiple servers. Seth holds a BS in computer science from Illinois Tech.