So at the Twin Cities Practical Agility meeting tonight, we had a lively discussion on Architecture. I expected more fire and argument. But we all seemed to agree that architecture was important and that agile methods don’t give much emphasis or guidance for this important activity.  The meeting was well-attended as always. But it was not as contentious as it normally is. I think many of us felt out of our depth discussing architecture. We’ve done enough to know it is important and interesting. And there were actually several people with real architecture experience.  But when we addressed questions like “Have you seen architecture done well on an agile project? What did that look like?”  or “How do you staff an agile project for architecture, and what do architects do?”  We were not quite as confident as we have been on other topics.

As always, I enjoyed the fellowship with great people, and was impressed by the speakers who gave lightning talks. What a great city to live and work in! This is one reason I moved to Minneapolis 20+ years ago – the opportunity to socialize with really talented and bright computer professionals and problem solvers.

In my lightning talk I mentiond the game “Hard Choices” that I mentioned in a previous blog post. But mostly, I talked about my experience with the lessons I have recently learned about architecture, and my recent interest in learning more about it.