The document discusses the need for intentional simplicity in technology solutions given the exponential growth in choices and complexity. It introduces the Snowman architecture approach for breaking down capabilities into simple, testable components ("snowmen") that interact through defined interfaces. Each snowman has a head containing business logic, a belly for technical implementation, arms as service endpoints, and a base for data. This allows capabilities to be highly reusable and solutions to be quickly composed to meet business needs through linking capabilities. The Snowman approach promotes intentional simplicity through consistent modular design.

1. INTENTIONAL
SIMPLICITY

2. I believe that in this time we live in more than
any other that came before it we are dealing with
exponentials.
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH,
EXPONENTIAL CHALLENGES AND
EXPONENTIAL SOLUTIONS.
This theme manifests into both daily life and our
businesses, and since our businesses are
technology driven into technology too.
EXPONENTIAL TRANSLATES TO THE SHEER
NUMBER OF TECHNOLOGY CHOICES WE
NOW HAVE WHEN SOLVING THE NEEDS OF
OUR BUSINESSES.
While in principle I believe this is positive it also
brings with it the potential for complexity.
Complexity inherently is required in some cases,
it’s the unnecessary complexity we need to
guard against.

3. Another consideration is the way we approach
problems. How is it that we find ourselves with
“legacy solutions”?
For me it’s quite simply two things: firstly, we’ve
allowed ourselves to reach that position and
secondly we have not been consciously
optimising for the right things.
WHAT DO I MEAN BY THIS?
Simply put, life is about choices – if we
consciously or unconsciously chose to allow
legacy this was our doing. Often legacy is the
unintended outcome of optimising for only a few
dimensions such a delivery velocity, business
functionality over sustainability.
THIS TALKS TO ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
AND WHETHER A CULTURE OF
REFACTORING EXISTS – THIS HOWEVER IS
NOT THE ONLY CONSIDERATION.

4. INTENTIONAL
SIMPLICITY

5. SO THE META QUESTION FOR
ME BECOMES:
since we have been building software for
decades what can be done differently to achieve
a different and more sustainable outcome. As it
happens there is much research on the subject
of it complexity.
My experience is that it complexity mirrors
business complexity – this my interpretation of
conway’s law.
I BELIEVE THAT WHILE THIS IS TRUE,
HOW WE CONSCIOUSLY PROMOTE
INTENTIONAL SIMPLICITY COMES
DOWN TO HOW WE THINK, DESIGN,
ARCHITECT AND ULTIMATELY BUILD.

6. The fundamental shift that one needs to make is
to move away from viewing businesses as being
supported by platforms towards a capability view
of an organisation.
THE CAPABILITY ORGANISATIONAL
APPROACH PRESCRIBES THAT YOU
NEED TO BREAK DOWN YOUR
BUSINESS INTO CAPABILITIES.
Capabilities are at a granularity where they
describe related sets of business functions, for
example: valuation and settlement are two
capabilities in a bank. Once you have done your
business architecture work we can start talking
about how you apply a new architecture
approach.
ENTER THE SNOWMAN OR
SIMPLE ITERATIVE PARTITIONS
(SIP) ARCHITECTURE:

8. The Snowman Architecture talks about creating “Snowmen” for each capability
– essentially a small system for each capability. Business functionality is achieved by
linking the required capabilities together by means of a messaging bus in accordance
with a defined business process.

9. THE HEAD of the snowman contains
the Business Architecture - practically
what this contains is business logic
which itself is comprised of the
capability business process and
related business rules.
THE BELLY OF THE SNOWMAN
HOLDS THE TECHNICAL
ARCHITECTURE OR TECHNICAL
IMPLEMENTATION OF THIS
BUSINESS LOGIC AS IT PERTAINS
TO THE CAPABILITY BUSINESS
PROCESS.
THE ARMS of the snowman represent
the Service Architecture or service
endpoints by which bidirectional
communication is achieved through
well-defined interfaces and through
which snowmen interact.
THE BASE of the snowman
encapsulates the Data Architecture
which contains the data itself as well
as the mechanism through which the
belly of the snowman interacts.
It must be noted that the head of the
snowman must only interact with the
belly which in turn interacts with the
base – IN THIS WAY WE ENSURE
DESIGN CONSISTENCY.

10. INTENTIONAL
SIMPLICITY

11. Right so we’ve been through the theory, lets
walk through a practical example of a snowman
built for a valuation capability – A SIMPLE
EXAMPLE. THE CAPABILITY IS REQUIRED
TO PROVIDED VALUATIONS OF PRODUCTS
GIVEN PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS AND
MARKET DATA.
Given this need the service endpoints (arms) of
the snowman have a method that describes the
interface that allows products to be valued given
characteristics C and market data M. This
method is implemented in the belly of the
snowman, in the implementation the belly
queries the head of the snowman for the
valuation algorithm given C and M.
The head applies the relevant business logic to
return the correct algorithm. Once returned this
algorithm is executed and both the method input
and outputs stored in the data layer (base) of the
snowman before the valuation result is returned
by means of the service endpoint.

12. So I understand the approach, can you articulate
some of the benefits?
Sure, following the example above we can easily
test our valuation capability. We understand its
interfaces and expected outputs for a given data
set. When we change our mind on how valuation
will be done we simply build a new valuation
snowman with the same interfaces and plug it in
alongside the existing one for parallel run before
we ultimately switch off the old snowman.
We understand dependencies as these are
articulated in the service data contract.
Capabilities are highly re-usable.
The most powerful value proposition for the
snowman approach is that we can achieve true
composition – in other words solutions can be
composed for business by linking capabilities.
The outcome of this composition ability is that it
allows us to move product to market at great
velocity.

13. IS THE
SNOWMAN THE
END, CERTAINLY
NOT, ADOPTION
OF THIS
APPROACH
TALKS TO THE
CONSCIOUS
MIND SHIFT
THAT WE’VE
MADE TOWARDS
INTENTIONAL
SIMPLICITY.
JASON SUTTIE
www.jasonsuttie.net
INTENTIONAL
SIMPLICITY