Developing business acumen

Practice · Chapter 3

The idea in brief

Deep technical knowledge is necessary but not sufficient. A technically impressive system is worthless if it does not meet its goals.
To design an appropriate architecture you must understand the business problems being solved and the business opportunities being pursued.
Business acumen is what separates a good architect (technical knowledge only) from a great one.

Three overlapping sets of goals

When designing, balance the goals of three focus areas that overlap and impact each other:

Focus area	Concern
Business	The organization’s objectives (e.g. time to market, ROI)
Users	What users need to accomplish their tasks
Software system	Technical goals and quality attributes

Goals frequently conflict. Example: an aggressive time-to-market business goal can starve requirements analysis and QA, hurting user goals.
The architect’s job is to find an acceptable balance among competing goals.

Familiarity with general business topics

Understanding business language gives you a common vocabulary with the varied stakeholders you interact with.
Useful general knowledge areas: finance, operations, management, and marketing.
Decisions are made on ROI and cost-effectiveness analysis of alternatives — grasp these to add value to the discussion.
Ways to acquire it: formal education, free/online classes, or reading books on the relevant topics.

Understanding your own organization’s business

Go beyond general knowledge and study your specific organization:

Products and services — what they are and the value they provide customers.
Revenue model — how the organization actually makes money.
Business processes — invest time to understand them.
Market and trends — the environment the organization operates in.
Competitors — what they do differently, what is similar, their strengths and weaknesses.
Customers (most important) — what their business does, how they use your products, and why they chose you over a competitor.

Mastering business, market, products/services, and customers puts you on the path to fully understanding the organization’s domain (see Domain-driven design).

Citations

Software Architect’s Handbook (Packt, 2018), Ch.3 “Developing business acumen”, pp. 138-140.