What do you do if unresolved conflicts are jeopardizing your system architecture project?

Identifying issues is paramount when conflicts arise in a system architecture project. Gather input from stakeholders to understand perspectives and concerns. Active listening and objectivity are crucial. With a clear grasp of the issues, work towards a resolution that addresses everyone's needs and ensures project success.

Identifying the root causes of conflicts is key to resolving them in a system architecture project. Gather information from stakeholders, analyze documentation, conduct interviews, and look for patterns. Be objective, encourage open communication, and consider external factors. Thoroughly identifying issues lays the foundation for effective solutions that align with project goals and stakeholders' needs.

Identify that there is an issue can be half the battle. If you find that team members disagree with the architectural direction, it's best to constructively confront them directly. They may not have all the facts, or be aware of business conditions that dictate a certain direction.

Use the active listening and gather information from all people involved is a crucial activity to create a correct and clear picture about the situations are creating noise and disturbing the project development.

First step is to identify the type of conflict. 1. 'Not clear to me' conflict. Business Team/PLMs may not find justification in Team spending 50% of their time in breaking a monolith into microservices. 2. 'Not doing my way' conflict. Some Engineers may be keen to push for a new tool but others may not see enough value in it. 3. 'Not willing to change' conflict. It arises when some team members do not want to change/move to a different Programming Language or higher skill level or a different process. 4. 'Just Do it' conflict. This happens when stakeholders just care for results and not the steps. For instance simplicity of Arch, clear User Stories are not seen as important.

Open dialogue is essential once conflicts are identified. Establish a safe space for stakeholders to freely express views. Encourage open communication and active listening to understand diverse perspectives on system architecture issues. Effective dialogue fosters understanding and paves the way for resolution

In my experience, fostering open dialogue among stakeholders is crucial for resolving conflicts in system architecture projects. At Lendindin, we've found that creating a culture of transparency and mutual respect allows for more effective problem-solving. By encouraging stakeholders to openly share their concerns and ideas, we've been able to address issues related to scalability, performance optimization, and security more efficiently. This approach not only helps in finding solutions that are acceptable to all parties but also strengthens the team's cohesion and commitment to the project's success.

Once you have gathered all the information on the problem areas, explore potential options to discuss the problems as well as the solutions with all the stakeholders. Key here is to have effective communication and provide a safe and comfortable environment to explore solutions, discuss any trade offs or finding alternatives.

Communication is crucial. You need to get dissenting parties together, whether it's in a physical location or virtual. Issues can be raised and discussed so everyone is on the same page. A lot of misunderstanding can come from mistranslation of facts relayed by others.

Once a safe and open platform allows members to share their end of argument, without having any members shutting them down or making them feel “not being heard”, it makes them more receptive towards understanding conflicted point of views. However it is important to maneuver such open dialogues in right direction so that the conversation doesn’t become demeaning.

Once all perspectives are considered, it's crucial to explore solutions collaboratively. This may entail compromise or innovation to address conflicting viewpoints without compromising project goals. Brainstorming fosters creativity, enabling the team to devise effective resolutions that maintain project integrity

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. Understand that there are always trade-offs but pay attention to risk assessments in determining which risks the business can/will assume, versus which ones it can't - these will help guide the shape of the compromises you must make.

Explore Solutions: With all voices heard, it's time to explore potential solutions. This might involve compromising on certain aspects of the system architecture or finding innovative ways to meet everyone's needs. Remember, the goal is to find a resolution that doesn't compromise the project's objectives or quality. Brainstorming sessions can be particularly useful, as they allow team members to think outside the box and propose creative solutions.

You are probably never going to find a 100 percent perfect solution. Weigh the pros and cons of each solution. Assign weighted numbers to them and score each solution. Consider other factors such as employee skills, ease of implementation, or other challenges. Write them out. If you have two or more solutions that are nearly equal, you will need to pick what you feel is best.

All the suggested or proposed solution shall be evaluated objectively. To ensure the same, one would need to categorize parameters against which this system architect shall be evaluated. That can be performance, security, specific customer use case or associated cost etc. Each of these can have their weight or priority. Now every proposed solution shall be mapped against these parameters. This will make decision making more fact based than emotion based.

In my journey as a System Architect, I've found that democratic decision-making not only fosters a sense of ownership among team members but also leads to more innovative solutions. For instance, during the implementation of a smart city project, we faced conflicting views on integrating IoT with public transportation. By voting on various approaches and openly discussing their implications, we not only arrived at a consensus but also uncovered unique integration strategies that significantly enhanced system scalability and performance. This experience taught me that a transparent decision-making process is crucial for aligning team efforts and achieving project success.

Once potential solutions have been discussed, it's essential to make decisions in a democratic and transparent way. This could involve voting on different options or reaching a consensus through discussion. It's important that the decision-making process is seen as fair by all team members, as this will help to ensure buy-in and commitment to the chosen course of action.

I'll mildly disagree with my colleagues on the a "democratic" solution. All input needs to be considered, and absolutely in a transparent way that values each contribution. However, at the end, you can't cobble together bits of different tech stacks together nor can you leave it to a simple vote, as most technical staff are going for essentially technical solutions. Other factors, such as cost, time to market, existing partnerships, individual and team skills assessment, long term manageability all have to come into consideration as well. A truly democratic choice is often myopic to the individual voters. A good SysArch manager brings all of that together and makes decisions based on all of the feedback discussed.

I feel it's best to present A, B, and C choices with pros and cons of each. The product owner or key stakeholder should be the final arbiter. Once a decision has been made, dissenting parties need to disagree and commit to the decision.

At this point we have heard every perspective for the System Architecture and mapped them against the evaluation parameters. This gives a good sense of team work, also feeling of being heard, thus making the further decision making conversation more receptive. Since the decision making is the evaluation based on end goal, it helps team rationalize the design decision. This instills Fairness and Openness aspect in the team and everyone work towards the same design goal in the future instead of wasting time to bring out the flaws of the design just to prove their point.

Once architecture design is agreed upon, accordingly it might require additional effort or reduce planned effort. Such changes shall be accounted in the project plan. Design document shall be updated and circulated to ensure team and stakeholders are on the same page.

Implementing changes in system architecture after a decision involves revising plans, updating documents, and communicating with the team systematically. Assign clear responsibilities and timelines for smooth execution.

Embora em muito casos possa parecer a mais complicada, esta etapa torna-se muito mais simples quando todas as anteriores s?o executadas com sucesso.

To address unresolved conflicts jeopardizing a system architecture project: 1. Identify root causes through interviews and analysis. 2. Encourage open communication in meetings. 3. Mediate and negotiate to find common ground. 4. Consider external help if needed (e.g., conflict resolution specialists). 5. Document agreements and action plans clearly. 6. Monitor progress through regular check-ins. 7. Evaluate lessons learned for future conflict prevention.

Monitoring progress is crucial when unresolved conflicts are jeopardizing a system architecture project. By closely tracking the implementation of decisions made to address conflicts, you can assess their effectiveness and identify any new challenges that arise. Regular check-ins with team members and stakeholders allow you to gauge whether tensions are easing and if the project is moving forward smoothly. Additionally, monitoring progress enables you to adjust strategies or interventions if conflicts persist or escalate. This proactive approach helps maintain project momentum and ensures that conflicts do not derail the system architecture project.

It is all down to a just in time problem. What do I mean? We need to make sure conflicts are flagged/detected as soon as possible and addressed at the right time within the appropriate context. Having the appropriate tooling that flags the directionality and location of those conflicts would go a long way to help streamline the process of addressing them. On top of that finding how to prioritise the right conflicts at the right time based on business needs would go a long way to save time and headaches...

Document the conflict, the resolution and any decision taken underway. Especially organisational conflicts have the tendency to show up again after a while. Especially when people involved in resolving the conflict are not longer in the organisation there is a high chance of being stuck in the same conflicts over and over. Documenting decisions in the form of ADRs (architecture decision records) can save tremendous amount of time and nerves.

If the unresolved issues are always coming from a particular employee, some form of coaching, or possibly formal disciplinary procedures may become necessary.

there will be cases where you can have alternate designs where both have merit. Objectively, they both work, but there are subjective reasons for each choice. I have found that over time, one choice becomes the preferred solution. For internal work, as long as implementing two designs has a small impact, design & build a prototype of both, then evaluate. For industry level, use prototype or dual implementation product as it allows everyone to progress. While I don't like going down the product route, getting the project done and to market in a timely manner, is usually more important than the incremental effort. Later, you can always obsolete the lesser of the two with no impact.