What a Decision Architect does.
He settles what gets built before it gets built. And he holds the direction while it is being built.
A Decision Architect says which plan applies.
A business has many trades: team, sales, marketing, software, suppliers. Each works to its own plan, and usually each works neatly. When the plans contradict each other, whoever builds first decides in the end. That costs money, time and what the business has built up over years. My job is to settle beforehand which plan applies, and then to make sure everyone builds to it.
Four principles.
See early what gets expensive later. Before almost every costly measure comes a decision that has to be made first. When it is made, it usually looks small. I look for it while it still costs a conversation.
Read first, then build. The cause usually sits one level below the problem: in decisions that made sense one by one and no longer fit as a whole. That’s why I read the business before anything gets built anywhere.
What can go counts too. The most important question is often the simplest: What can simply go? Every offer, every project, every tool costs money and attention, even when nobody needs it any more.
Every piece of work ends in a document. What I read becomes a basis a decision can be made on: what applies, what speaks for it, what follows from it, what has to be decided first. No workshops, no series of meetings. Reading, a few conversations, one document you work with straight away.
Three stages.
The question. The pre-checks are free, one sheet per project. They show which decisions are still open. The verdict isn’t on them.
The verdict. If a known decision is stuck, it’s the Consultation, ending in the Decision Letter. If the loss is known and the cause isn’t, it’s the Forensic, ending in the Report.
The consequence. In the Rebuild, I lead the build until the Architecture stands. In the Direction Mandate, I then hold the direction, quarter by quarter.
I judge. The decision is yours. The architect draws, the client signs.
The terms.
This is how I use them, on this website and in every document.
Decision Architect. Sets, together with the business, what money and time are spent on before anything gets built, and then holds the direction.
The decision before. The decision about the core, the direction and the shape of the business. Every major decision rests on it.
Decision Letter. The document after the Consultation: the decision, the reasoning, the criteria, the risks, what no longer needs discussing, what happens next.
Report. The result of the Forensic: where the business carries, where it breaks and where money is lost, with a figure on it, handed over bound.
Architecture. The result of the Rebuild: what gets built, what doesn’t, and in what order.
Operating manual. For each system built, the manual by which team and suppliers run it.
Direction Mandate. Quarter by quarter, a Decision Letter. One page: do, drop, measure.