EA - Enterprise Architecture in Action

There are a lot of things that an architect can learn from this movie. A few worth mentioning are:
•    Never say die!
•    Keen Observation
•    Analyze the non-obvious
•    Take care of your team, your mentees, be there for them.
•    Know your priorities

Scenes to watch for:
1.    There is a scene in the middle of the movie, where the whole gang tries to spy on Bindu and her music teacher – Master Pillai (played by Mehmood). While spying, most of the other members of the team are obsessed by how beautiful Bindu looks and some are totally angry with Master Pillai for his bold movies. While all this is happening around him, Guru, using his keen observation skill analyzes that in reality, Bindu has no liking for the teacher per se, instead, she is fascinated by his musical talent and respects him for that. This single observation shapes up the remainder of the movie and becomes the key instrument in getting Bhola, his life’s love.

Although it sounds very simple, but keen observation is a very rare skill. Unfortunately, it is also one of those skills that you cannot pick up in a class. You need to practice it by opening your mind and trying to look beyond the obvious. The architects who master this skill are automatically promoted to a different league than their competition. They have long lists of satisfied clients and are up to their neck with repeat business.

2.    At one point during the movie, when Bhola loses faith in Guru’s strategy and approach, he grows dull and erratic. In this scene, Guru cheers him up by pointing out the silver lining and giving him a projection of what future could hold. At the same time, he also addresses his immediate concern by justifying his approach and elaborating on why he is doing things the way he is doing it.

It is a very common problem with us as Architects. We usually get carried away with the details of the technology and assume that our team and the people sitting across the table understand the reasons and rationale, right? Wrong! It is quite important for you as an architect to explain your decisions to the people around you – in the form of architectural decisions documentation or one-on-one discussions - whatever works. The flip side of this aspect is that if your team does not understand why a decision has been made, they will not be able to sell it on your behalf to others. In fact, it can also happen that they come back from meeting convinced that the decision that you have made is wrong. And the problem keeps on snowballing …

3.    In general, throughout the movie you will notice that our architect never gives up. He is always on the lookout for alternatives, for other things that may click … for a plan B. During the first half of the movie, upon learning of Bindu’s fascination of music, Guru tries to teach Bhola the fine art of music.  After failing miserably at that, he comes to terms with the fact this approach is not going to work and let’s go of the approach. While he is pondering over what to do next, his mind picks up the faint sound of a radio playing at a distance. One thing leads to another and not a long time after, he decides to work with Bhola as his playback singer. A pure, master stroke of genius!

This scene can teach us the value of keeping our eyes, ears and mind open. The next big idea can come from anywhere and at any time. There are lots of corollaries available outside the technology world which can give us insights into how to tackle the most complex of IT issues. Another important lesson in this scene is to understand and appreciate different talents available in your team and come up with ingenious ways on how to put them to best use. You have dead weights in your team only because you have given up on figuring out how best to use the skills available.