Simon is a hands-on software architect who works within 
[Training] From Developer to Architect.
A two day software architecture training course is now available through Skills Matter.
Don't forget the people
Human behaviour in IT has been sitting in my newsreader for a while now and I've been meaning to post a link to it. Very rarely do people in IT write about the softer side of the job and it's always interesting when they do.
Being someone in a senior position not only are required to have an in depth understanding of technical details, but you are demanded to understand your peers and your client better. This is something very difficult to do because it's not something that you can read from textbooks or from any kind of book. As a senior person are in a position where we need to gain respect from our peers, and the respect that we need to get are not based on our technical capability but from our "soft skills" capability.
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Humans are more complex than the most complex algorithms there is in this world, and that's the challenging part. By understanding and able to work with humans we will be able to make the people around us happy and this in turn will make the project more successfull. It's understandable that it's not possible to please everybody but the more we try to do it the more people will appreciate it and the more positive things will come out of it.
When I've delivered architect training/mentoring, I've always said the role was about balancing the functional and non-functional requirements through architecture/design, development, mentoring and quality assurance. I'll be modifying this in the future to include people.
