Ask HN: What makes a good solution architect?

Things in my experience that increase the success of a project.

Deliver small bits very frequently and demo and ask the stakeholders for feedback. If i was unsure about delivering all the features in 3 months, I would tell them that. However I would try get the real priorities of their needs and focus on them first. At the end 3 months you should be able to deliver something that provides something valuable but not everything.

Make sure you build quality in as your building.

They should judge progress of the project by what your giving and showing them, not a timeline and a status report.

Upfront documentation isn't necessarily the best way of getting knowledge accross(Although it should be used). The best is collabarating, pair programming with your team etc

I don't know what your situation was, but these days setting up ci/cd pipeline to a staging/prod slot for a small project is fairly quick...

>I was only given 3 months although I speculate the project will need minimum 6 months.

1)If you feel a project is not going to succeed, identify all the risks and make them very clear before the project starts. If you are forced to do a project despite objections, ensure that you present the risks and technical compromises to all the stakeholders. Make sure everybody knows the risks. Then just go ahead with the project and don't complain too much, even if you feel the project is going to fail. Also, if you have downstream projects (e.g. after your team is finished, another team will start phase 2 you really need to make those risks clear.

Part of identifying the risks is to present what needs to be in place to mitigate these risks. Statements like like "Dev Environment needs to be in place before we can start this project because of X,Y,Z."

2). I've been in situations where a client/customer was excited for us to do something and I felt there was only 20% chance of success. I said "Maybe, but there is some risk". They interpreted this in the completely opposite way - to the customer this was the green light of success. In retrospect I should never had uttered the word "Maybe" or given any similar indication.

>I believe I have the knowledge, and not afraid of looking for the knowledge and the "proper" ways of things should be done.

You have learned the way all Solutions Architects do. By failing and then asking what you could have done better. When I work with people who are just starting in their careers, they ask me "How did you know so early on this project would not succeed?" It is because in the past I was in their shoes and said "Yes, we can do it" and then failed and felt terrible about it. It feels worse if people work 60+ hour weeks and then it still fails because I misjudged the effort required.

Many people do not ask what went wrong when they failed. They don't take any responsibility and then go and make the same mistake over and over again. You are in a much better position - at least you are asking how you can do better the next time and what it takes to succeed.

Don't be depressed. You are learning by trial and error like everybody else does :)

You've clearly already learned something from this process, and you'll apply that knowledge the next time around.

That next time won't be perfect either, but again you'll learn something and continue to improve.

Don't beat yourself up about not being a superhuman who could anticipate every possible issue the first time you did something. Even the best and most experienced architects still make mistakes with every project and still learn something new each time around.