Mythology for Architects

Deze week sprak ik op het Landelijk Architectuurcongres over het gebruik van verhalen in de IT. Over datzelfde onderwerp zou ik graag ook in 2012 in Florida spreken. Maar dan moet eerst mijn voorstel worden aangenomen. Daartoe stuurde ik vandeweek onderstaande samenvatting op.

The ancient Greek myths about what may have been the first architect of mankind, Daedalus; the biblical story on the effort of building the Tower of Babel; even fairy tales like Three Little Pigs contain a lot of wisdom that cannot be expressed in UML or BPMN diagrams.
If an architect’s job is to realize systems that add value, his work is not limited to handling hard, technical information. In order to involve and inspire others, he has to formulate a vision. If he wants to avoid the dangers of splendid isolation, he has to collaborate with many stakeholders with possibly conflicting interests. For his solutions to be successfully implemented, he has to facilitate a change process and deal with dilemmas and tradeoffs. In short, an architect has to communicate, enthuse and convince and in the process deal with the emotions and political games this evokes.
Since the dawn of mankind, stories have been the means to deal with these types of complexity. An architect has to be a storyteller. He has to be able to find or create the right stories and to tell them effectively.
In this presentation, I will tell a story or two about the power of stories for architects. You will go away knowing the value of stories for sense-making, collaboration and communication in your architecting work.