Breaking the Architecture Bottleneck

Andrew Harmel-Law discusses their book "Facilitating Software Architecture" and how traditional architecture approaches often become bottlenecks that slow down high-performing development teams. Rather than architects making top-down decisions in isolation, Andrew advocates for a facilitation approach centered on the "advice process" - where anyone can make architectural decisions as long as they seek advice from those with expertise and those who will be affected. This collaborative method, inspired by open space conferences and supported by Architectural Decision Records (ADRs), shifts the architect's role from decision-maker to conversation facilitator, ensuring the right people have the right discussions at the right time. The approach requires psychological safety and organizational support but has proven successful even in traditional corporate environments, ultimately creating more maintainable code bases where development teams actually enjoy working and can respond effectively to changing requirements.