An architect's guiding principles for leadership, 2019 Software Architecture Conference, NY

Architects are leaders. We need to understand our business, our users, and our ecosystem. We need to effectively interact with our stakeholders, productively collaborate with design and product teams, and give direction and motivate our development teams. Achieving these goals requires much more than technical excellence.

Drawing on material he’s used to train team members ranging from developers and designers to executives, Seth Dobbs (Bounteous) offers a primer on leadership for architects, focusing on guiding principles that are easy to learn and put into practice. Principles will cover both inward focus (personal mastery) and external focus (effective interactions) and will include topics such as vision, problem solving, ownership, and conflict. Seth introduces each principle first with a problem or anti-pattern, discusses the principle, and then details examples of the principle in practice. Whether you’re new in a leadership role looking to understand the “soft” skills required or have been leading for a while and want to formalize your thinking on leadership, this session is for you.