EA - Enterprise Architecture or Extreme Aggravation

The movie ‘Lagaan’ will always be remembered for having made it to the Oscars from India and being one of the most successful Indian movies of recent times. The word ‘Lagaan’ translates to Tax that the British Government used to collect, from Indian peasants & Kings alike, during their rule. The movie depicts the struggle of a man who is offered a tax release package if he can beat the English at the game of cricket. The only problem is that neither he nor anyone else that he knows understands or has ever played the game. He is given three months time to learn the game, convince others, form a team and beat the English team.

The lessons that an architect can learn from this movie are:
•    Selling ideas & on boarding people
•    Never lose sight of the goal even in turmoil
•    Negotiation
•    Leading change
•    Asking for help
•    Overcoming traditional barriers
•    Having & maintaining faith
•    Courage under fire

Scenes to watch for:
1. In the first half of the movie there is a scene where our architect is thrown the challenge of beating the English at the game. He does not react immediately and waits for the opponent to raise the stake from one year’s tax break for one village to three years tax break for the whole province.

Nothing has taught me to do my due diligence more than this scene from this movie. As an architect you need to know when is the stake good enough to take a risk or walk away. Walking away is extremely difficult for most of us but sometimes it just makes common sense!

2. There is another very interesting scene during the beginning of the match between the two teams.  Since our architect’s team has never played the game of this scale before, they fret when the match starts. Irrespective of the direction of any shot being hit, everyone on the field starts running towards the ball. Till the time the architect instructs everyone to hold their ground and purpose and only pursue shots that are fired in their direction.

I have personally experienced this problem in large scale projects. The team totally loses control from top to bottom when a small issues comes in a high risk, high stakes project. It is at times like these that the architect should preserve common sense and pacify his team. Make sure the issues are tackled in the same way that they are tackled in a medium scale project. He needs to keep panic at bay and maintain order in the functioning of the team.

3. There is another scene shot on the immediate next day after the challenge is accepted by our architect. He still does not have any other player in his team and is looking for recruitment. The approach that he uses is same as that used by Napoleon when he had to get his army across the Alps - by convincing the army that this was in fact not the Alps, but just another mountain. In the movie, our architect ridicules the game of cricket by comparing it with a simple game of stick & peg which everyone is comfortable with. He gets a child to take the bowl and tries to hit it hard with a home-made bat. The setting that he chooses is the village center to get maximum effect.

This scene can teach an architect attributes like idea selling, on-boarding people & leading change. It also gives good insight into how to handle new technology and get your team up to speed. People who have seen this movie will also agree with another lesson that comes from this episode – help can come from unexpected quarters. The first team mate that our architect gathers is a mad fortune teller whom most of the village has written off as a no good, cynic.

4. While the team is practicing for the big day and they are still short of players our architect stumbles upon a hidden talented spin bowler. The problem is that he is an untouchable belonging to a lower caste and none of the other players want to play with him. The way our architect tackles this problem in the movie is by first embracing the new bowler and then reminding everyone of the common goal and common enemy. He also makes it crystal clear that this is not just a game and there is no one in the team whose ego is bigger than the goal. Later in the movie, this decision turns out to be a match winner where this same bowler walks away with the hat-trick.

The corollary on our side is not too hard to imagine. Working with big teams, all of us come across people whose egos sometime wears bigger shoes than their own. It becomes the job of an architect to herd everyone as a team and lead them to a common goal. It also teaches us how to overcome traditions and barriers that they impose.

5. One last scene that I would like to mention is in the last 30 minutes of the movie. The team finds out that one of them has been cheating in the game with the intention of making them lose for his personal gains. As soon as this truth surfaces, the immediate reaction from everyone is to kill that person in utter rage. Everyone besides our architect, that is. He knows that in this last hour, he cannot afford to lose out one player and go to play with one player short. His best bet is to make sure that this person turns around and plays his heart out in the next day’s play. After saving him from the rage of the crowd, he explains him how this is his last chance and how he would need to prove himself in order to stay alive. This gamble pays off handsomely the next day when that person plays instrumental role in clinching a crucial wicket.

The lesson that we architects can take from this particular scene is to never lose sight of the big goal, even under pressure or turmoil. It also teaches us about second chances and the process of renegotiating trust.