Soft Skills for Software Architects

SOFT (Frankfurt am Main) - Markus Wittwer - German - date confirmed

Dealing Constructively with Conflicts as a Software Architect

As an architect, learn to communicate purposefully and interact constructively with stakeholders. Master role clarification, recipient-oriented communication, moderation and dealing with conflicts in development teams.

What keeps software architects from doing the work they are supposed to be doing? They are positioned between the conflicting priorities of different stakeholders (management, customers, development team, etc.) and must communicate and mediate depending on who they are dealing with. They must develop solutions with their development team that can be positively implemented while bridging the gap between budget and quality. They have to think outside the box and at the same time provide practical and all-knowing support wherever it is required. And all that with an often vaguely defined role leading to differences in expectations and without any management authority, while still bearing responsibility as the architect for the outcome. These circumstances lead to conflicts small and large which we address in this training in order to resolve them for the future. This training course provides you with concrete, usable tools for your work. We work on your cases and learn strategies for constructive negotiation, moderation, and conflict resolution. For example, you receive our pocket-sized in-house-developed conflict analysis canvas which helps you to analytically respond to confusing situations:

Agenda

• Define the role of the software architect: development of one’s own role and interests

• Shining a light on stakeholder interests: development of the contact points to other stakeholders and their interests

• Learn about the conflict analysis canvas: presentation of the canvas

• Analyse conflict cases: consider personal practical cases with the help of the individual elements of the canvas

• Develop constructive conflict resolution: presentation of strategies for the prevention of conflicts or their constructive resolution (including moderation of heterogenous groups, receiver-oriented presenting and convincing, coaching questions and lateral management, quick decisions in the group after consent)

• Use constructive conflict resolution: use of the appropriate solution strategies in your own practical cases

• Transfer: (preventive) behavior for the early recognition and resolution of conflicts in your work

Your Trainers

Markus Wittwer

Markus Wittwer Collaboration Consulting

Psychological safety, effective communication

• Promoting psychological safety
• Soft Skills for Software Architects

Markus has been helping companies become successful with agility for more than 20 years. Previously, Markus worked as a software developer and now alternates between the roles of trainer, coach and consultant - depending on what the client’s situation requires.

His focus is on the more invisible aspects of agile change, e.g. trust and effective communication, which make the self-organization of teams effective in the first place; e.g. community building, which makes successful cross-team collaboration possible in the first place; or e.g. the many small interventions and impulses that make a major change to an agile and modern organization successful in the first place.

The promotion of psychological safety is one of the cornerstones of his work.

Links to videos:

• Manage Stress as a Developer

• Mind as Code - Mindfulness for Developers and Knowledge Workers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UgpoaM5670)