I often get the question about what architects do. Over the past year or so, I've begun to see the critical pattern. It turns out is the same thing that good managers do.

Communication

As an architect I have no one that reports to me. I have no ability to directly "order" someone to do anything. Oddly enough, that is actually true for people that manage also. Anyone who manages from a power base rooted in the review process is generally a bad manager. The review process, the ability to fire, are all tools of last resort. These are the nuclear weapons of leadership and should never be used as methods of persuasion. Instead, in the end, it's about our ability to communicate ideas, infect people with our views, and build a groundswell of support.

Today I was giving someone advice about using PowerPoint to convey an idea. It wasn't about flashy graphics (quite the opposite) but rather about using the right tool for the job. They wanted to create a click through of some design time experience for some Windows Form feature. I went through the quick methodology for doing it, and in the end it took about 25% of the time that he had originally thought it would, and was (hopefully) going to convey the idea much better than before.

My model for presentations has drastically changed in the past 12 months. My methodology now is to start with a brian dump whitepaper. Rework the paper to tell a story, build headlines for the major sections, and then use that to drive a slideshow. I don't religiously follow this, however the idea of focusing on the story, the key points, and simplicity remains the same.

I recently had a "test" of my communication skills. I gave a presentation on versioning to the Avalon team. Around 80 people showed up. I tried to remove as much information from the talk, reduce it to it's simplest concepts. The questions I got indicated to me that people understood the topic. Now, the big test - in two months will people remember anything about it?