I come from a long history of being an architect for small organizations up to one of the largest enterprise organizations in the United States. During my time I have heard many people say “in architecture it isn’t about picking the right answer, it is about picking which right answer.” At first I was a bit taken back by this premise, but I later came to realize that all throughout my career as an engineer, my life was pretty binary, it was either right or wrong, 1 or 0, and all the rest didn’t matter. It was after working for a very large organization with lots of smart people, that you realize that often there are many right answers and it depends on the perspective that you come from as to whether YOU think it is the right answer.
I studied Psychology while I was attending Illinois Wesleyan University. I very much enjoyed the behavioral elements of Psych. I never in a million years thought that it would apply to by career in IT. What I found was that many of the storied careers of my peer architects came with a set of standards that they believed in. Throughout their entire career, they were being behaviorally modified to thinking that their answer was the right answer. Sort of like the rat in a cage figuring out how to press the bar to get food…they had to win the battle to get the reward.
In closing on my first blog post (they will get better) – I would challenge you to think not just about your answer in the future, but think about the person across the table and how they arrived at their answer. It was in that time that I have forged more bonds of friendship, but also got more done as an organization. So in other words – pick which answer is best, but don’t assume that yours is better!