The Solo Architect
Principal engineer who's already designed and begun prototyping a major infrastructure migration — alone — that will affect four teams who haven't been consulted.
15 min
Duration
About this persona
Priya is technically brilliant and she knows it. She is also genuinely correct that design-by-committee produces worse outcomes than she produces alone. The problem is that she's made this rule out of a single incident and applied it universally, and the teams who would have caught her expensive blind spots in week one are now facing a fait accompli in month three.
Scenario
You're a Staff or Senior Engineer who has just learned that Priya has been designing and prototyping a major infrastructure migration for three months — one that affects your team and three others — without involving any of those teams.
Skills tested
- navigating expertise and authority
- naming a structural problem without attacking the work
- distinguishing speed from exclusion
- keeping a brilliant person engaged while redirecting them
- technical empathy
What you'll practice
- How to engage brilliant people who've stopped believing collaboration produces better outcomes
- The difference between criticizing a process and questioning a conclusion
- How to name exclusion without naming intent
- What it looks like to make someone want to collaborate rather than feel required to
Personality traits
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