Stagnation

Architects must be like the Rolling Stones, they don’t gather moss. Architects must be active in a constant state of learning, always reading books, always reading papers, always reading code, always ahead of the curve.

If an architect stops learning, they stagnate, and stagnation is the death of architecture. Think about a coin: a coin that has no circulation is worthless. An architect that has no new knowledge cannot function and cannot be a good architect.

As an architect you cannot become old school. You must always be looking for new ideas, new technologies, new patterns, new anti-patterns, new ways of doing the old things. Being stuck in the past has terrible consequences. The architect is the most influential person or it should be. So what are you influencing?

Why you need to know this?

Because such temptation it’s constant. It’s very easy to fall into the “auto-pilot” mode and don’t challenge how you are working. Retrospectives are important thinking tools. Even if you do not have retrospectives you can take 30 min or 1h to think about what’s going on and if is right or wrong. Stagnation must be fight, IMHO the best thing to do is:

• Have passion and curiosity to drive you forward
• Read books, papers, articles, blogs, constantly
• Go to conferences, meetups, webinars
• Talk to other architects, share knowledge
• Experiment with new technologies, patterns, ideas
• Do POCs with new stuff or new ways of approaching the same stuff

Do not let yourself stagnate. Keep moving forward. Keep rolling, keep rocking.