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The ITx 2018 Programme may change without notice
Whilst it may seem obvious that the Architect makes Architectural Decisions, anyone working on IT projects will realise that there are many types of decisions.
There are project decisions, decisions involving the business requirements, architectural decisions, and solution design decisions. There should be a clear demarcation between each of these categories, and thus who is responsible for making the decision, but in real-life situations it can often become quite confused.
This talk will attempt to clarify these different types of decisions, with a focus on architectural decisions; how they should be documented and resolved to the satisfaction of the IT team. he heuristics and cognitive biases around decision-making will also be discussed, as rational decision-making is important for getting it right.
The benefit of correct decision-making is a higher likelihood of success for the project.
LPS
Duncan Watson has been working in IT organisations in Wellington for over 30 years with the last 20 being in various Architecture roles for both vendors and clients including large Government organisations. He is currently working as an IT contractor as the Lead Solution Architect for IT transformation projects.
He has been a full member of the Computer Society (the precursor of ITP) since 1991, but the first presentation he delivered was back in 1985 on Speech Synthesis from his Masters’ research at Auckland University.
He gained Level 2 Architecture Certification with the Open Group in 2006, and CITPNZ in 2009. He runs several WordPress blog sites and develops Android apps for smartphones (22 apps with more 150,000 downloads). In his other spare time, he enjoys travel, hiking, and bird photography.