THE DATA ARCHITECTURE CONSTRUCTION PROJECT (Full Chapter, Free excerpt)

This is a full copy of “The Data Architecture Construction Project”, the fourth chapter from the book “The Data Garden And Other Data Allegories”.

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An exciting opportunity… or is it?

You’ve been waiting for this for a long time. It’s the opportunity you’ve been training for and it’s a great honour. After many years of working in various different roles, working your way up the ranks and building experience across numerous positions, you’ve finally made it. What you don’t realise, just yet, is quite what you’re getting yourself into.

Three months ago, you successfully completed the build of a new business estate on the outskirts of Master Data City. It used cutting edge new technologies and has become widely recognised as a masterpiece of data engineering. It’s become the catalyst for a total transformation of the fortunes of those living and working in the area and prompted a significant increase in investment in similar developments nearby.

Fifty miles North of Master Data City is Data Insight Town, which has been growing rapidly in recent years. There’s been a lot of hype in the media about the great opportunities there, and data people from across the Data Country are flocking to make their fortunes amongst the pioneers who have spearheaded the recent new wave of products and services from this emerging powerhouse of value.

The Data Country’s government can see the potential of Data Insights Town and have drawn up plans for an infrastructure project that will create a new business hub for innovation and will provide transport links to help data people travel more quickly and comfortably to, from and across the town. It will help people get to work and will also provide them with easier access to data shops and other data amenities, more easily and cheaply than they can get to them today.

You’ve been appointed as the Chief Architect and Programme Director for the initiative. There are several teams of architects and builders that have been transferred to you to lead and you have a sizeable budget. It’s a big responsibility and you can’t wait.

Your primary responsibility is to build the new “Data Lakes” development on the far side of Data Insight Town, and to create a high-speed data highway, which will give data people easy access to the new development and its cutting-edge facilities.

There was also a passing mention of the need to tidy up some older parts of the town, where needed, but you’ve been assured that your focus will be on building the Data Lakes, to spearhead the regeneration of this part of the town and enable the next wave of innovation and business ventures.

What’s going on?!

You’re being driven in for your first day by your Head Builder. This is the first time you’ve been to Data Insight Town, and as you look out at the passing buildings and structures, your jaw drops.

Buildings are crammed together in a total mish-mash of different shapes, sizes and styles. Some look high tech and well maintained and others look half-finished and derelict. At seemingly random intervals, the buildings and roadworks are interspersed with large data garbage heaps, which in some cases are spilling out into the road, slowing data traffic and causing data people to swerve dangerously to avoid them.

One minute you can feel the car gliding along on a nice flat, high quality road, the next you’re bumping over makeshift data dirt roads, which act as rough connections from one smooth road surface to another. It’s like someone’s built a load of separate roads but couldn’t join them properly for some reason, so just dug out a path in the dirt as a way to enable data cars to get from one to the next.

You look over at your Head Builder, who looks content and acts as though this is all absolutely fine and normal. You can’t believe it. It’s the biggest mess you’ve ever seen. What on earth have you got yourself into?

The other thing that strikes you, looking around, is how much building work seems to be going on. There are cranes, diggers and workmen all over the place. You’re pretty sure these aren’t members of your team, so you wonder who’s commissioned all this work and who’s coordinating it.

Then something surprising catches your eye. An imposing structure in the distance, which seems to cut right across the town. It looks like a road on stilts: a huge flyover, carrying data cars from one part of the town to another. You weren’t aware of such a flyover and you’re sure it wasn’t mentioned in any of the briefings.

You ask the Head Builder if you can go and see it. He raises his eyebrows but agrees and takes a slip road in its direction.

What you’re about to find is more bizarre than you could possibly have imagined…

The sticky-plaster data bridge

As you draw closer to the structure, you can see that it’s covered in what appears to be large plasters and bandages. You rub your eyes in disbelief. They literally look like the kinds of plasters you’d use if you grazed your knee, but blown up to a much bigger size and plastered all over it.

You want to get a closer look, so ask: “Can you take me to the base of the structure, please?”

The Head Builder nods in response to your request. “Boss, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you interested in coming down here? Don’t you just want to get to your office? That’s what all the other architects normally do.”

You smile at the suggestion that you’d allow yourself to fall into that stereotype. “I need to see what’s actually going on, because otherwise I’m not going to know if our plans are practical or not.”

“Oh, OK. I just thought you were an architect, that’s all.”

You hold back a laugh. “I am an architect!”

“But don’t architects just stay in their office drawing pictures?” You can’t tell whether your new colleague is joking or not, but if he’s not, you can see why your predecessors may have failed to deliver very much.

At this point, you’ve arrived at the base of the flyover and you decide to continue your conversation later. It’s going to be important for people to understand the role you’re going to be playing and how everyone’s going to have to work together, but if your Head Builder’s thinking this way, it’s going to take more than a five-minute chat.

You both get out of the car and look up at the patchwork structure. “Do you know what’s underneath the plasters?”

The Head Builder shakes his head. “I couldn’t be absolutely sure. We think it’s old data pipework, but the people that built it retired a few years ago and we only have people who know how to tend to the plasters. Trouble is, the plasters themselves are now so inter-twined, there’s only a handful of people who know how to maintain them now, too.”

“Wow.” What you’re looking at is both a crazy marvel of engineering and a maintenance nightmare.

Don’t worry about the data losses

What happens next is the most shocking and scary thing you’ve ever seen.

There is a sudden, loud crashing noise above you. When you look up, you find yourself frozen to the spot, as a data car tumbles from the highway and plummets down a hole only three feet from where you’re standing. You feel the rush of air caused by the data car plunging past you, and watch in horror as the data person inside screams in terror before disappearing into oblivion.

You’re gasping for breath as you look at the Head Builder and are stunned to see him gazing at you quizzically. He looks totally nonplussed by what he’s just seen.

“What,” you wheeze, “just happened?!”

“Oh that? That’s nothing. I mean, it’s normal. I mean, it’s pretty rare, in the grander scheme of things. Considering how many data cars use the flyover, it’s pretty amazing that so few are lost.”

Before you have a chance to reply, there’s another crashing sound, and you jump backwards as another car plummets past you and down the hole.

“Where do they go?”

“Oh, we don’t exactly know, but there’s no getting them back, that’s for sure. Once they’re lost down that hole, they’re gone for good.”

You can’t believe how relaxed he’s being about this. It’s like it’s a totally normal occurrence. But that was a data person in there, you could see the fear in their eyes, and now they’re gone! That can’t be right!

“Hasn’t anything been done to stop that from happening?”

“Oh yes, yes. We’ve got a team of people up there, watching out for data cars that might go missing. When one of them looks like it’s going to go off track, the team jumps to action and uses a belt of sticky plasters to nudge them in the right direction. Nine times out of ten, it works, too.”

“You have a team of people looking out for data car crashes and then manually redirecting data cars when they go off track?”

“Yep.”

“But wouldn’t it make more sense just to fix the data highway, so that none go missing?”

The Head Builder snorts. “Well, yeah, but that’d cost a lot and no one wants to spend that kind of money, given that our team catches most of the cars that go over there.”

As if on cue, another car rushes past. There’s a whole family of data people in this one and their cries for help ring in your ears.

“Surely employing a full-time team and having to keep buying plasters is expensive?”

“Oh yeah, I mean, it’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper than actually fixing the flyover properly, and it’s not like many data people go missing, so it’s alright.”

“Not many…?” You stop as you realise, looking at your Head Builder’s face, he is totally convinced that there’s nothing to worry about. Now you’re worried. What else has been built like this? What other dodgy manual fixes are you going to find?

You’ve seen enough here, so ask to be taken to your office. As you’re driven there, you think through what you’re going to say to your new team and wonder how they’re going to react. You decide to start by asking questions and listening…

“What a team!” Or should that be… “What team?”

A meeting’s been organised with the leaders of each of your teams. Helpfully, representatives from some of the other architecture firms and building companies have also agreed to join.

As you walk into the meeting room, you can feel the tension amongst the people gathered there. You smile broadly and say hello, walking in with as much confidence as you can muster to take a seat at the top of the long table that fills most of the room. The windows are open, but there’s no breeze and the room’s hot and stuffy. All of the seats are occupied, people crammed into the narrow gaps between the table and the walls, and there are a few people stood up at the back of the room. You can see one person leaning on the limp remains of a broken fan, wafting himself with a notebook in a vain attempt to cool down.

You introduce yourself and offer your vision of positive collaboration and collective success. Rather than spending lots of time talking about yourself, you make it clear that you want to hear from people in the room and invite them to speak in turn. You say that you’re keen to encourage open discussion and want to hear about people’s concerns and challenges, so you can do something about them.

Abstraction Utopia

The team to go first is sat closest to you and is clearly keen to impress. It’s the Strategic Architecture team. The team’s leader eagerly introduces himself and his three team members, who are surrounded by stacks of printouts and as they start talking, are pointing at some very pretty-looking presentation slides displayed on their sleek tablet computers.

This is the kind of Architecture team that your Head Builder had been talking about. Lots of great ideas and pretty pictures, but the diagrams and strategies that they describe to you have very little connection to reality.

The vision that they paint envisages the use of the most advanced technologies to deliver transformational value to all who use them. Everything will fit into the neat concepts that the boxes on their slides represent, and data will flow seamlessly and without error from one end of the page to the other. It’s inspiring and expansive. It’s compelling thought leadership and you can see the excitement and hope in their eyes.

It’s also totally unrealistic.

They clearly understand technology and have definitely done their research into the newest and best tools available. You can also tell that this is a team of technology experts who really know the state of the art and could have some great, out-of-the-box ideas to solve problems, if they were directed at the right problems to solve and with the right constraints. Unfortunately, they’ve spent too long gazing at the stars and thinking into the future, without being grounded in the current challenges so that they could develop solutions to immediate problems and work out what needs to happen in the “here and now”, to be able to get to the “there and then”.

To be fair to them, they do finish off their presentation by skimming through fifty pages of “transition state” plans, with beautiful illustrations, showing how their vision could be realised by building the new structures on top of the remnants of the legacy architectures across Data Insights Town. The trouble is, although you can appreciate the theory, you also know from what you saw on your drive to the office, that the theory isn’t based on a real understanding of the existing architectures or what it’s going to take to evolve the town in a realistic and cost-effective way.

You thank the team encouragingly and give the nod for the next team to talk.

Technology Snobs

The next representative to speak clears his throat before he starts. He’s not joined by anyone else from his team and commences by announcing with a distinct air of pride that he leads the Infrastructure Maintenance team. His team is responsible for the upkeep of critical infrastructure and they directly protect the safety of everyone travelling and using the facilities across Data Insight Town.

It turns out that the Infrastructure Maintenance team employs over two thousand infrastructure engineers, including a few of the only people that still understand some of the old materials and technologies that have been used to build the town.

Initially you’re impressed. This team seems to be everything the Strategic Architecture team isn’t: it’s practical, delivery-focused and has a very strong sense of how it delivers value.

However, alarm bells begin ringing in your head at some of the things the Head of Infrastructure Maintenance is saying. The team is highly reactive. They jump into action when they hear something’s going wrong, rushing to prop up old data structures and plug gaps in data roads. They are the sticky plaster experts and don’t seem to have any idea about the condition of the structures across the town and how fast they’re deteriorating, so aren’t able to plan or do anything pro-active or preventative.

Also, you sense a real sense of nostalgic attachment to some of the old technologies. The Head of Infrastructure Maintenance’s monologue is peppered with comments that are dismissive of the Strategic Architecture team’s previous presentation and their lack of connection to the “real world”. There’s clearly no love lost between these two teams.

You ask about what alternative approaches and tools they’ve considered to improve the sustainability of their fixes, and the defensive reaction tells it all. They love the technologies they use and other technologies couldn’t possibly be any better. They’re also world experts in them. The only experts left, because some of the technologies are on their way to extinction!

As with the previous team, you make it clear that you’re happy that they’ve been so candid and forthright with their views, before moving to the next team.

The Executors

The next person to step forward is sharply dressed, and as she starts to talk, her calm, commanding tone is precise and crisp. Her eyes are intense and focused. The description of her team’s purpose, its achievements and plans are structured, logical and well-rehearsed.

This is the Programme Delivery team. Their job is to “get stuff done”. They don’t have any preference of technologies or tools, they just need to know what needs to be done, by when, and with what resources, and they’ll make sure it happens.

Their team is very new and consists of expert delivery managers, brought in from other towns and cities. It was set up following the various overdue and unsuccessful projects that the incumbent teams had failed to get over the line.

The team leader is almost jarringly direct and doesn’t hesitate to explain the issues with cross-team working, lack of budgetary control, absence of leadership and unwillingness to collaborate. You can see people from other teams wincing and crossing their arms as she talks. Whilst you’re really glad to hear such honest feedback, it’s not delivered in the most diplomatic way, and the team’s going to need to work well with the other people in the room, so you can see there’s going to need to be a bit of work put into relationship building here.

Having said that, it’s a relief to know that you have people with delivery skills, even if the team is small, new and currently a little disconnected. It’s increasingly evident that you’re going to have your work cut out encouraging these various groups of people to work together productively, but you know it’s better to have that problem, than to have lots of people who all get on well but don’t have the skills you need to get the work done.

One thing that does concern you slightly, as you listen to the concluding remarks, is some of the comments you’ve heard about delivery being “the only thing that matters”. Whilst delivery is crucial, it’s also important to care about the way in which things get done, the outcomes and the people affected. Then again, if this team really is as good as their leader is saying they are, then they should know that.?

You thank your Head of Programme Delivery and move onto the next team.

Concerned Contractors

The next set of people to speak turn out to be a group of external contractors, who are there to represent a number of other external architecture and building companies. They work for private investors but are keen to ensure they have good working relationships with your government-backed team. It turns out that they have some concerns of their own too, which they’re all too happy to share with you.?

The contractors aren’t shy about their motives. They make it very clear that in most cases, they’ll do whatever they’re told, as long as they’re paid enough. However, they struggle when they’re asked to do something they don’t agree with, because they’re all experienced professionals and have standards of their own. They don’t want to put their name to something that’s sub-par and they make every effort to steer their clients in the right direction. In some cases, they tell you, they have refused to do certain things, because they’re downright unsafe. The trouble is, there’s always another company that’s happy to pick up your contract if you walk out on it.

You’re told stories of projects where the private investors have spent so much money on them, they don’t want to admit failure so keep on going, even when their contractors have told them that it would be more sensible and cost effective to cut their losses and try a different approach.

You also hear about several projects that were abandoned half-way through because funds dried up or investors lost their nerve, but where there was no interest in wrapping up the build properly, resulting in partially-built safety hazards left in the middle of the town.

The other thing you learn is that the only contractors in the room are the ones who actually want to be there. There are some “cowboy” contractors, who are just out to make some quick money, without caring about the consequences of their shoddy work. These cowboys couldn’t be bothered to turn up today and the contractors who are presenting to you now share their worries that these other rogue builders are giving them a bad name and making everyone’s lives harder by making the town’s architecture more complex and more fragile than it needs to be.

You’re surprised to hear that some of this is even possible. Back when you were working in Master Data City, there were strict data building regulations that needed to be adhered to and were policed by the local Data City Architecture Councils. You make a note that you’ll need to talk to Data Insight Town’s governor, to see if something similar would be possible to arrange here. Without properly enforced building regulations, you could end up fighting a losing battle against dodgy buildings and hard-to-maintain infrastructure, even if you are successful in getting your own teams to work in better ways.

By the time the contractors have finished, they look exhausted. You can tell how much stress they’re under and it was clearly a cathartic experience for them to share their worries.

Your Build Team

Now that you’ve heard from everyone else, you return your attention to your Head Builder, who’s sat calmly in his chair next to you. As he starts to talk, you’re surprised to notice an immediate shift in the atmosphere of the room. Arms are uncrossed, frowns are relaxed, attentions are re-focused and the previously stifling temperature seems to tangibly drop and feel more bearable.

He starts by thanking his peers and some of the other people who’ve spoken, who turn out to be former colleagues of his, for their introductions. Then he offers a bit of background before he goes into his team’s current role and what they’re doing at the moment.

Your Head Builder first came to Data Insights Town as a teenager and joined one of the earliest building teams as an apprentice. He talks fondly of the high standards, pride and work ethic of the pioneers that built the town. As the town grew and the local council took a more active role in overseeing its development, he moved to join the new organisation that would eventually become the team that you see before you.

Back then, the senior Architecture and Delivery leaders were experts in their field, who had been appointed into their positions due to the central roles they had played in leading many of the ground-breaking developments that established Data Insight Town. They understood how to design and build structures that were cost-effective and fit for purpose. They pushed the boundaries through the sensible use of new technologies, whilst being careful to only do so when it made sense and delivered value.

The success of the team led to its rapid expansion. Your Head Builder rose through the ranks and was fortunate enough to work with a range of great people. As he speaks, he indicates to some of the people sat around the table, who smile and nod in positive acknowledgement of their shared past.

The changes in the fortunes of the team started when some of the senior leaders were headhunted to join large firms in other cities away from Data Insights Town. New executives were brought in, who didn’t have the same level of experience or standards as their predecessors. Their focus was on saving money on “non-essential” activities such as quality control, in favour of “value-driving” developments, such as new Data Storage Warehouses and Data Insight Marts. They were frustrated by the speed of delivery and removed some of the minimum requirements that had been in place for all buildings in the past, in an attempt to speed things up.

Your Head Builder shakes his head, as he recounts a time when he escalated his concerns because a data office building was being built on a swamp with no foundations. His escalation was ignored. He was called a “purist” and “impractical”.?

“… But anyone who knows anything about good data architecture, knows that you need good foundations if you want to do anything!” There are lots of nods from people around the room, as your Head Builder says this. You can sense the respect they all have for him and wonder if you were a bit too quick to judge him, based on what you saw on your drive into the office.

Needless to say, he tells you, the results of this change of approach were disastrous. Then the blame game started. First, the project management teams were all fired, because there was a perception that they weren’t working, due to the issues with delivery. The Building team was expected to absorb this capability as well as doing the all of the building work they had been doing before.

Next, the Architecture team was fired. The executives felt that the architects were too expensive and didn’t have anything to add that their experienced builders couldn’t do. The Architects had previously maintained all of the schematics and plans for the whole town, but once they were gone, the plans fell quickly out of date and projects were initiated based on the whim of business executives without any real idea of how they would fit into the wider landscape.

As things continued to worsen, the next idea executives came up with, was to get help from more private companies, rather than depend on the government-backed teams. The Head Builder’s boss was poached by one of the big contracting firms that was brought in and that was how he ended up being promoted into his current position.

It was around this time that the accidents started occurring. Data cars started disappearing down holes, the first set of data structures fell over and data warehouses fell into disrepair, overflowing with garbage and leaking corrupt data mess into the adjoining streets.?

Many data people’s lives were lost. Before this time, there hadn’t been a need for a sizeable maintenance team, but now it was clear that it was essential. In order to rapidly mobilise this new capability, some of the best people from the Data Build team were transferred into a newly expanded Infrastructure Maintenance team.

Since this all happened, over the past few years, your Head Builder has done his best to keep things going as best he could. He’s lost good people to other teams and to contracting companies that pay more, but those who are still working for him are experienced and very loyal. The way things have been organised has made it difficult for him to be as effective as he could have been, but with his colleagues he’s still managed to deliver some successful builds.

The Build team is much smaller than it used to be, but your Head Builder is proud to be in charge of a set of master builders, who work on the most important building projects and provide support to other teams whenever needed. They operate a bit like an internal consultancy service and have a mix of architecture, project management and practical building skills. They also know a fair amount about the history of the town and have relationships with most of the other organisations working there.

As the Head Builder finishes his speech, he waits for a moment and allows the silence to linger. Then he smiles broadly and his next set of words are gentle and reassuring. “So, as you may have noticed, there are a number of us here, who care quite a lot about this town. We’ve all been through some pretty frustrating times in recent years, but I’d like to hope that I can speak for everyone in this room when I say that we all want to do the best work we can and to turn Data Insight Town into the kind of place all data people want to come to visit and work and live.”?

Now that you’ve heard from everyone, you have a pretty good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your teams and how they’ll need to work together to be effective. It’s obvious that you’ll need more time than just this afternoon to work out all of the details, but you want to lay the groundwork immediately.

You thank everyone again and ask them to come back in a couple of hours to have a forward-looking discussion.

As the room clears, you reflect on what you’ve just heard and how you’re going to run the follow-up meeting in the afternoon. There’s a range of challenges that you’re going to need to overcome, but you’re feeling far better than you had been earlier. If anything, you can feel a cautious excitement rising within you. Although there’s a lot that needs to be done to foster trust and communication amongst these teams, there is an unquestionably diverse set of skills and experience across these groups of people, which could prove to be very powerful. Now you just need to work out how to harness all of that potential, in a practical and useful way.

A new regime

When everyone returns, you start by playing back some of the points that you’ve heard. You acknowledge frustrations and concerns, before drilling down into some of the changes that you’ll be making to the way everyone works, which you’d like to implement as soon as possible.

The structure of the teams and their leaders will stay as they are for now, to minimise disruption, but there will be a weekly meeting scheduled, where all of those present in the room today, including the contractors, will gather and collaborate, from this point forwards. This group will start to act as a joined-up leadership team, and that means that everyone will support each other and prioritise shared objectives over any goals that teams have individually. This may take some time to get right, and that’s OK: the main thing will be to start thinking of each other as being part of a bigger whole. You invite people to be open and free to speak their mind, so that issues can be identified and dealt with quickly.

Pragmatic Data Architecture

Turning to the Data Architects, you praise their vision and enthusiasm. Your plan for them is to involve them more directly with the work that all of the other teams are delivering, so their role can become more pragmatic. This should dramatically increase the chances of delivering the more advanced tools and technologies that they have been researching.

In order to facilitate this change, the Architects’ time will need to be divided between four activities.

• The first, most important activity, will be to use their design expertise to review the current plans that Build and Infrastructure Maintenance teams are delivering, to either help them improve by suggesting alternative ways of designing things, or to endorse them so that everyone can have more confidence that the projects that are being delivered are making the town’s architecture better. You look around the room and ask that the other teams are open to the Architects’ help. This is all about starting to work better together and benefitting from each other’s different skillsets. This first task will mean that the Architects will be involved in the design phase of all new projects, so their expertise will be used practically. It will mean that project teams can learn from them, and they can learn more about the practical realities of how the town is currently setup.
• The second task that you want the Architects to take on will be even more dependent on support from the other teams. You want them to start developing a set of schematics that reflect the known current state of the town’s infrastructure and buildings. Every time a project delivers something new, it will be up to them to submit their architectural drawings and plans to the Architecture team, for them to add it to their knowledgebase, which will then help better inform designs and plans for future developments. Involving the Architects in the design phase of projects will also help with this, but they may not have capacity to work on every project so the responsibility will be with delivery teams to submit the content to the Architects, and the Architects will then maintain them.
• The third responsibility that you give the team is to start drafting and formalising a set of building regulations. You offer to provide them with contacts in Architecture teams in other cities to help fast-track this exercise with some tried-and-tested requirements and design patterns. Many building regulations are based on the same core principles around data structure design and upholding the safety of data people when they’re using the structures, but you’re keen for the Architects to utilise their expertise to develop standards and rules that help everyone working in the town to deliver better and safer buildings.
• Finally, you still want the team to continue to invest some of their time in researching and experimenting with new technologies. The passion for innovation and the art of the possible is really important for the future of the town. It’s exciting and could open up opportunities that currently seem beyond reach, so it’s something you’re keen to maintain. However, the other tasks must take priority, so you suggest that they forward-book time to spend on this, to make sure other priorities don’t get in the way.

You can tell from the reactions around the room that not everyone is convinced by your proposals, so you re-iterate the point you’ve already made about how important it will be for everyone to be open and share their concerns, and that it will be through collaborating as a team and learning that everyone will succeed. If something isn’t working, that’s fine, we’ll work out why it isn’t and adjust.?

Pro-active Maintenance

Turning your attention to the Head of Infrastructure Maintenance, you confirm to him that you know that there is still a need to react to urgent maintenance needs, especially where the safety of data people is at risk.

However, building on what you’ve just said about the Strategic Architecture team, you would like the Architects to be involved in any significant maintenance works, because there may be opportunities to use new technologies and techniques, to improve the longevity of repairs and also make them easier to maintain and build on in the future.

Before there’s a chance for a disagreement to be raised about this, you hold up your hand and continue assertively. You respect and appreciate the expertise of the people who have been using tried-and-tested technologies for a long time. You are not dismissing their value and you just want the right solutions to be implemented for the right jobs. If old technologies are the right things to use, then they should be used. However, if they’re not, then it’s important to be honest with ourselves about this and to consider better alternatives. By involving the Architects, the Infrastructure team can teach them about the old technologies, so they can learn the best ways to use them, and at the same time, the Architects can teach the Infrastructure team about new tools and techniques, so they can be upskilled and be even more useful and effective in the future. If both teams enter into this with open minds, it will be a win-win scenario for everyone involved.

Next, you address the reactive nature of the team and how important it is to be more proactive. Whilst responding to emergencies is undoubtedly critical for the health and wellbeing of data people using the town, doing everything this way is inefficient and unsustainable. The team will be under far more stress working in this way and they could also end up missing important opportunities because they’re so busy just dealing with the tasks immediately in front of them. In order to help with this, you’ll be asking the Programme Delivery team to provide support and would like to encourage the Infrastructure team be open to their advice and guidance.?

Finally, in order to support the more pro-active management of the data infrastructure across the town, you would like the team to start reporting on the condition of the data structures that they’re fixing, and also to start monitoring the data people and data cars that are using the infrastructure. Without knowing the condition of the data structures and how they are being used, it will be impossible to know which ones need the most attention and why.

?There’s a bit of a pause, as you observe the reactions around the room again. You can still see some concern on some people’s faces, but there’s been a lot less resistance than there could have been, and no-one’s actually complained yet. You take a breath and continue.

Transparent, Integrated Delivery Support

Speaking to the entire room, you take a moment to share how impressed you are with the expertise that you can tell exists within and across teams. You acknowledge that there have been challenges with delivery in the past, but this has been in part due to a range of factors that were not entirely within the control of the people assembled here today.

Now there’s an opportunity for everyone to take back control and to deliver more successfully together. This is where you see the Programme Delivery team playing a pivotal role.

Effective delivery is important for all teams. As such, members of the Programme Delivery office will need to embed themselves within each team, to act as trusted partners in establishing good practice project management and cross-team collaboration. They will not be there to lead the delivery themselves, because that’s still the accountability of the leaders of each team, but they will be there to support and help steer.?

Also, crucially, they will establish transparent reporting on status and progress, which will be reported back to this leadership team every week, so that everyone understands what’s going on, across all areas. You want to hear about risks and issues early, so that action can be taken, and will be far more forgiving of people who admit that they’re struggling, than people who try sort out all of their problems by themselves, without sharing them with this group. “We’re all in this together. We’re one team, here to support each other to succeed collectively.”

At this point, you can see your Head of Programme Delivery is sat forward in her chair. You maintain your composure and nod positively in her direction. Despite the fervour, you know this is going to be a more challenging culture shift than your words make it sound, but success will be achieved through the practical application of this new way of working, day by day, and through consistent “leadership by example”. Enthusiasm is a very good starting point for this.

External Partners

Turning now to the group of Contractors, you thank them again for being so open with their observations, and state your intention to engage them pro-actively by making them part of the extended leadership team. You acknowledge the fact that they are independent and their loyalty will rightly be with their private investors. You also point out that there will be some activities and discussions that they will not be able to be part of, due to their external role, but at a minimum, they’ll have a seat at the weekly leadership team meetings.

By involving them directly, you’re keen to hear their candid views on what’s happening across the rest of the town, what’s working and not working, as early as possible. Doing this will also mean that they will get to hear about, and in some cases influence, initiatives that are being managed by this team.

Referring back to the concerns that they raised earlier about unsafe data practices, you inform them of your intention to talk to the Data Insight Town’s governor, to take steps to address this formally.

Build Team

Getting back to your Head Builder, you’re pleased to announce that you’ve spoken to him this afternoon and he will be formally taking on the role of your deputy. He smiles and nods, and you can see the look of approval from people around the room.?

As such, people should feel free to come to either you or him if they have any questions or concerns. You’ll be working together to make sure that everyone in this new leadership team is connected and supported. The Build Team will continue to be engaged across teams, as it has been previously, prioritising their effort based on the areas of greatest need.?

The challenges ahead

Now that you’ve laid out your plans for the way you’d like the team to work, you give people a few minutes to allow what you’d said to sink in, before you wrap up the meeting with a summary of next steps.

This is just the beginning and through active collaboration and regular reflection on the operational performance of the team, the operating model is something that can be evolved over time, based on the lessons that are learned along the way.

Whilst you do believe that the changes you’ve outlined will help everyone work better together and will by implication drive greater productivity and success, it’s also important that everyone is clear on the challenges ahead and the part that each individual plays in addressing them.

Data Insights Town is very busy, with many data people travelling across it and using its facilities every day. Any building work will cause disruption and will put some data people at risk. There will be times when parts of the transport network needs to be temporarily shut to enable maintenance work, or where data people will need to be re-directed, especially when new roads are opened up.

Data people will always need to travel and they will find a way to get across town to work, even if they have to work around the infrastructure that’s in place in circuitous, costly and unsafe ways. This is a reality that needs to be accepted and considered when delivering data building projects.

Everyone has become very used to ways of working that are going to need to change, and that’s going to be challenging at first. It’s going to take conscious effort and the support of each other to make those changes stick.

To name a few simple examples: the constant use of sticky-plasters is no longer acceptable. Although it will be tolerated where absolutely necessary, it’s important to start designing for the future, using the right materials for the right job.?

It will no longer be acceptable to build without establishing the right foundations first. This will add time and cost up-front, but will speed things up in the long run. There’ll also be a shift to more modular, re-usable structures. This will make them faster to build, easier to extend and connect together.?

Whilst all of this sounds very straightforward, you know it’s going to mean change for people, which will require support and follow-through.

The final point you want to make is about keeping the end user in mind. Everything is being built for data people, and the way that they will derive value from the roads and buildings that are being built and maintained, will be through using them. This needs to be front and centre during every build: why do data people need these new structures and how will they be designed and built to deliver the most value for them and to encourage them to use them?

In terms of next steps, you’ve now laid out your initial thoughts on how you’d like the teams to work differently. You’ll be arranging for the weekly meetings to be established from next week, along with regular one-to-one catch-ups with each member of the leadership team. You ask that each team lead considers what they’ve heard and pulls together a plan for how they intend to implement the new ways of working.

On this note, you’re finished for today. You thank everyone for joining and express your sincere excitement for this opportunity and the privilege to lead such a great team. You’re looking forward to working with such a talented group of people and are confident that by working as a well-coordinated group, you will all be very successful.

Hope for the future

After the meeting has finished, your Head Builder finds you back in the meeting room, leaning back in your chair and gazing out of one of the windows at the Data Insights Town skyline. The sun is setting behind one of the tall buildings in the distance and the sky is awash with hues of red, yellow and orange.

His presence stirs you from your reverie and you look at him with a smile. “How do you think my first day went?”

“Could’ve been worse,” comes the response, with a chuckle.?

You laugh in return. “That sounded enthusiastic!”

Your new deputy comes and sits next to you. He speaks slowly and with meaning. “I’ll be honest, Boss. Things haven’t been great around here for a long time. I think you can see that from what you’ve heard today. But you can also see how much everyone here cares about this town. We’re all here to make things better. That’s why we came here in the first place. We’ve had lots of people come here with their big ideas and mess things up, but today you showed that you could listen and you want the best for us. That means a lot, and if you really do mean what you say, and really do follow through on it, then all I can say is that I’ll do everything I can to help.”

What a long way you’ve come, in just one day. You look at your new companion seriously when you reply. “I meant every word of it. I can see we’ve got some great people here and I’m looking forward to working with you to deliver some great things.”

Nothing more needs to be said. The journey has begun. Together, you’re going to transform Data Insights Town for the better.

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Lesson 4:

Data Architecture is like delivering a large infrastructure building project. Connecting good design theory to practical delivery, and coordinating the efforts of multiple delivery and maintenance teams, can make the difference between a costly mess and amazing success.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this excerpt.?Please do let me know what you think in the comments below.?

If you want to read more chapters from the book, please do check it out on Amazon:

• The Data Garden on Amazon.CO.UK
• The Data Garden on Amazon.COM

Thanks!