Thanks for the meeting today!

[rvanderwerf]

Not surprisingly, it seems all of our jobs can be very different from
one another. Some people have more coding, some have lots of politics.
If there is one thing everyone has in common is we all have to be very
flexible! Sometimes you have to think out of the box to come up with
solutions business owners want, or dealing with difficult people.

Other important attributes I think are important:

1) listen well (not just to business owners but developers, qa,
whomever who have to help you implement your vision) but don't be a
chump and think you have to act on them all :)
2) to be an agile architect - let go of your ego and don't be afraid
to pass the ball to someone else after you communicate your general
vision and parameters.
3) be flexible (we all probably know that)
4) keep an open mind. Sometimes things sound ridiculous but hear the
person out, there may be a method to their madness. If not, they will
appreciate you listening and showing you care about their opinions.
5) get off the ivory tower and do some coding even if it's
prototyping. I don't think just drawing UML and writing specs are
enough. Sometimes architects forget how hard it is to implement this
stuff.
6) communicate - often wasted time or poor implementations are due to
poor communication - which in turn can cause poor decisions to be made
by everyone down the chain. Don't forget to communicate to your boss
too, although try to break is down into a very small summary if
possible :)

Ryan