ESD.34 System Architecture

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I had long discussions with my colleagues on whether system architecture principles and learnings had any relevance in today's world  with hyper rate of changes in technological innovations, specially in the software industry. To some extent, I concur with my colleagues that the scrupulous methodology preached by system architecture is not very applicable in the world of software product development. Only principles like Minimal Viable Product, Scrum/XP product development methodology, and quick- to-market  seem to be more applicable for software product development. 

The rate of innovation in software field is so fast that by the time you start and complete ESD.34 class, the whole technology innovation cycle has passed you by. Most often, initial needs and product goals are no longer applicable by the time the product has gone through alpha, beta stages. This makes you wonder if everything we learnt in class was applicable to software field or not.

I am of the opinion, that irrespective of the speed at which innovation and product development is happening, fundamentals remain the same. Concepts and principles underlying the system architecture still apply, but speed and manner in which they are applied, changes. ESD.34, as stated by professor Crawley(

MIT Aero/Astro - Prof. Edward F. Crawley - 

http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/www/people/crawley/bio.html) in the first class, aims to rewire your neurons, make you think differently and transform you into a better architect. To a large extent, ESD.34 course has been successful at doing that. Whether we explicitly go through all the steps of architecture during product development or not, we do in fact follow many principles unconsciously. They become part of your subconscious toolkit and make you a better product manager.

In conclusion, system architecture is an amazing course and everyone should definitely take it. My opinion has been constantly changing over the year since the time I started it in Jan. I just have a few feed backs for improving the course. One, number of assignments should be reduced and secondly, class could be made more interactive and discussion oriented. I believe it sometimes goes overboard with the lecturing style of teaching and number of slides, which end up making you dizzy.

Now that I am done with system architecture class, I feel I am almost at the end of the journey I started at MIT. Few more courses to go and then I am back to the industry.