I was reading a book from Mr Marek Budzisz called “Strategic solitude of
Poland” (it is in Polish, so the translation is mine). It is about current
geopolitics and how Poland fits into the picture between our allies and
Russia.
One of the things that I’ve noticed is that in both: geopolitics and IT
projects, there are a lot of opportunities to build golden bridges. It
is a technique one can use to allow somebody to save face when making
decisions.
Imagine a VIP stakeholder in an IT project that said something silly or
just simply wrong, in a meeting with other stakeholders. Should you say
something? Disapprove with him publicly? No, please don’t. Instead you
should build a golden bridge for him so he could retreat gracefully and
choose another solution and keep his face.
The golden bridge is a tool that an architect should definitely have in his
toolbox. A common tool for IT and geopolitics.
Paweł