"Role as a hat, not a head"

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"Role as a hat, not a head"

I was recently reading an article entitled "A Study of Architect Roles by IASA Sweden" by Daniel Akinine in which he interviews Pontus Gagge, who makes this statement:

"However, we need to keep in mind that a role is a 'hat, not a head'; the role describes the current engagement, not the totality of our interests and skills, and that, generally we will have areas in which we are comparatively stronger."

This statement struck me as particularly true, since many people move in and out of the role of architect quite frequently. In the context of the statement, Mr. Gagge makes the point that when a person moves into the role of "architect", that person does not forget or forsake any of the other skills, experience, wisdom and knowledge that they have acquired in previous roles. Quite the contrary, an effective architect leverages those intangible assets to help him/her excel in that role.

I think the inverse of Mr. Gagge's latter statement is also true: if an architect's experience almost always extends beyond the role of the architect, the person in that role rarely embodies the totality of the information required by that role. I would go so far as to say that the vast majority of architects approach each new project without the knowledge necessary to successfully complete a project.

But they learn...

That is perhaps one of the defining attributes of successful architects: they learn and adapt. They know where to look to learn, and can see structure long before others do. They easily grasp not just a new concept, but the implications of the concept. They understand principles and let those principles drive their decisions.

I'm sure we've said it as often as we've heard it: "I don't have to remember everything as long as I remember where to look it up". The older our profession gets, the greater the body of knowledge that will be available. We can't know it all, but at least we know that.

May 12 1:35 PM | Blog it | Software Architecture

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