Towards complex adaptive architectures

Towards complex adaptive architectures A journey from hypes and habits to real needs

Uwe Friedrichsen, codecentric AG, 2015

@ufried Uwe Friedrichsen | [email protected] | http://slideshare.net/ufried | http://ufried.tumblr.com

Time for some storytelling …

Story #1

The story of markets

Formal part of value creation Solution: machine

Dynamic part of value creation

Solution: man

sluggishness/low dynamic high dynamic high dynamic

The historical course of market dynamics and the recent rise of highly dynamic and complex markets

The dominance of high dynamics and complexity is neither good nor bad. It‘s a historical fact.

t 1970/80 today

Age of crafts manu- facturing

Age of tayloristic industry

Age of global markets

1850/1900

Spacious markets, little competition

Local markets, high customi-zation

Outperformers exercise market pressure over conventional companies

We call the graph shown here the “Taylor Bathtub”. The “bathtub” curve

Source: BetaCodex Network Associates, “Organize for complexity”, BetaCodex Network White Paper 12 & 13



Solution: man




t 1970/80 today




1850/1900




We call the graph shown here the “Taylor Bathtub”. Pre-industrial era


Tailor-made solutions

“Mastery is key to success”



Solution: man




t 1970/80 today




1850/1900




We call the graph shown here the “Taylor Bathtub”. Industrial era


Cost-efficiently scale production

“Get more done with less people is key to success”



Solution: man




t 1970/80 today




1850/1900




We call the graph shown here the “Taylor Bathtub”. Post-industrial era


Continuously respond to changing demands

“Continuous customer communication

is key to success”

Industrial era

•  Cost-efficiency •  Scalability •  Repeatability •  Stability

Drivers for organizations

Post-industrial era

•  Cycle times •  Adaptability •  Flexibility •  Resilience

Story #2

The story of organizations

The predominant industrial organization …

Market

Observe

Derive Goals & Create Plan

Execute Execute

Command & Control

Execute

Command & Control

Execute

Command & Control

Command & Control

Tayloristic Organization

Tayloristic Organization Pros •  Cost-Efficient •  Easy to scale simple/complicated tasks Cons •  Sluggish response to change drivers •  Very fragile with respect to complexity à Great for wide and slow markets, Bad for narrow and dynamic markets

A post-industrial organization sometimes seen in the wild …

Market

Observe

Derive Goals & Constraints

Beta Organization

Share Goals & Constraints

Collaborating autonomous

Teams

Inspect & Adapt Inspect & Adapt Inspect & Adapt Inspect & Adapt

Beta Organization Pros •  Responds well to change drivers •  Deals well with complexity •  Scales quite well Cons •  Centralized definition of goals & constraints à Modern leadership model for narrow and dynamic markets

An ideal post-industrial organization not yet seen in the wild …

Market

Complex Adaptive Organization (Cybernetic Organization)

Continuously communicate

Organization continuously adapting to market needs & demands

Cybernetic Organization Pros •  Best response possible to change drivers •  Perfect for dynamic, complex markets Cons •  Effective, but not necessarily efficient •  Not suitable for simple/complicated tasks à Great for narrow and dynamic markets, Bad for wide and sluggish market

Story #3

The story of IT

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Complicated

(Business functions)

Complex

(Business processes)

Highly complex

(Business nervous system)

Software crisis

Software engineering

PC

LAN

Internet Business Support

of IT

Selective

Holistic

Complicated

Complex “Moore’s law”

Mobile IoT

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Complicated


Complex

(business processes)

Highly complex


Software crisis


PC

LAN


of IT

Selective

Holistic

Complicated


Mobile IoT

We are here …

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Complicated


Complex


Highly complex


Software crisis


PC

LAN


of IT

Selective

Holistic

Complicated


Mobile IoT

… but we still base most of our decisions on that

We are here …



Solution: man




t 1970/80 today




1850/1900




We call the graph shown here the “Taylor Bathtub”. Remember the bathtub curve?

This adds an additional twist …

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Complicated


Complex


Highly complex


Software crisis


PC

LAN


of IT

Selective

Holistic

Complicated


Mobile IoT

… but we still base most of our decisions on that

We are here …

Business is very different today …

… than it was back then

Business

Market

IT today is a …

… Nervous System

… Medium … Product

… Differentiator

Disruptive Technologies

Business Support Systems

Continuous Conversation Digitization

What we learned so far … •  Markets changed a lot

•  From wide & sluggish (industrial) •  To narrow & dynamic (post-industrial)

•  Different organizations required to meet market needs and demands •  Tayloristic (industrial, centralized) •  Beta (post-industrial, partially decentralized) •  Complex adaptive (post-industrial, decentralized)

•  IT itself changed a lot •  From supporter of selective business functions •  To business nervous system and differentiator

Time for a law …

Conway’s law: Organizations which design systems [...] are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations

Conway’s law reversed: You won’t be able to successfully establish an efficient organization structure that is not supported by your system design (architecture)

Monolith

Example: Multiple teams working on a monolith usually end up in tightly coupled teams with excessive communication overhead

Time for architecture …

Industrial Post-Industrial

What kind of architecture suits the different paradigms and organizational approaches best?

Tayloristic organization

Architectural Drivers

•  Core driver: Cost-efficiency

•  Centralized control •  Centralized change process •  Minimize cost/feature •  Change response times of

minor relevance

Implies

Application Properties

•  Big Applications (“Economies of scale”) •  Large change projects •  Big, infrequent releases •  Long change response times •  Rigid, inflexible architecture •  High degree of configurability

•  Optimized for output/$

Leads to

Cybernetic organization

Architectural Drivers

•  Core driver: Cycle times

•  Decentralized control •  Decentralized change

process •  Minimize cycle time/feature •  Change response times are

essential

Implies

Application Properties

•  Small, resilient Applications •  Change flow instead of projects •  Continuous releases •  Very short change response times •  Flexible, decoupled architecture •  Configurability of minor relevance

•  Optimized for outcome/$

Leads to

Time to locate some architectural styles and technologies …


Monolith

Layered Architecture

Process Engine

Rule Engine

ESB Microservice REST

Event driven

Message driven

Complex Adaptive

Architecture

Actors

Central Database

Cloud

Orchestration Choreography

RPC/RFC

Time for some mismatches …

Example 1

Microservices on top of a central database


Monolith


Process Engine

Rule Engine


Event driven

Message driven

Complex Adaptive

Architecture

Actors

Central Database

Cloud


RPC/RFC

Example 2

Microservices orchestrated by a process engine


Monolith


Process Engine

Rule Engine


Event driven

Message driven

Complex Adaptive

Architecture

Actors

Central Database

Cloud


RPC/RFC

Example 3

Layered Microservice Architecture


Monolith


Process Engine

Rule Engine


Event driven

Message driven

Complex Adaptive

Architecture

Actors

Central Database

Cloud


RPC/RFC

Example 4

“Cloudifying” a traditional monolith


Monolith


Process Engine

Rule Engine


Event driven

Message driven

Complex Adaptive

Architecture

Actors

Central Database

Cloud


RPC/RFC

Example 5

Architectural requirement from an actual customer project


Monolith


Process Engine

Rule Engine


Event driven

Message driven

Complex Adaptive

Architecture

Actors

Central Database

Cloud


RPC/RFC

Time to come to an end …

Wrap-up

•  We arrived in the post-industrial age

•  The organizations need to adapt

•  The role of IT also changed massively

Ø  We need to re-think IT!

•  Conway’s law affects architecture

Ø  Align architecture and organization

Ø  Don’t mix solutions for different needs

Don’t go for hypes or habits. Go for needs.

@ufried Uwe Friedrichsen | [email protected] | http://slideshare.net/ufried | http://ufried.tumblr.com

Towards complex adaptive architectures

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