Without any doubt, the clients have borne the brunt of the crisis in software development – having to live with the inefficiencies and outright failures of these projects after the consultants, engineers and programmers have called it a day, collected a check, and moved on. The cost of failure has fallen to the clients, and in turn, consumers, stockholders, and taxpayers. All of us, you could say. Looking forward, the good news is that clients - and the rest of us - have the most to gain from the establishment of the profession of software architecture.

It is the philosophy of that the software construction industry is in crisis because the role of the architect has not existed in a meaningful, logical way. Without a true architect, without a blueprint, all but highly technical clients encounter a validation problem. The client does not really know how the finished product will look and function, the length or outcomes of construction phases, the cost, the roles, or the accountabilities.

Both building and software architects form the bridge between client's needs and the technical realm of the builders. In building a home, the client can remain blissfully ignorant of roof flashing, footings, risers, or fireplace clearances. The client relies on the architect in this respect, but is also able to compare reality to the blueprint and validate quality and progress, independent of the architect. This is not the case in the software industry. There are times when the client cannot answer the basic question, "Who does what, and when?"

It is really very simple, this idea of a perfect analogy between building and software architecture. But transforming ideas are elemental and clarifying, often eliciting the rhetorical question "Why didn’t I think of that?" Like characters from Jonathan Swift, our eyes have been gazing up into the clouds of complexity while we fail to see we are stepping in muck – or sinking in a quicksand of jargon. We are building complex information structures without architects, without blueprints, leaving the client unable to validate and manage. With an architect, the client wields the scepter. Without one, the builders rule the roost.

Right now, clients cannot open The Yellow Pages to find "Software Architects." And when they do find them, they can be anything from a programmer to a LAN administrator. There are no industry standards and no formal software architecture degrees. Academic training is now limited to construction-oriented computer science, from which people with a talent for architectural design emerge, willy-nilly, without a paradigm or process. This was the state of building architecture at the start of the industrial revolution.

At , we see the clients of software construction projects as the beneficiaries of our efforts to establish this profession. Clients deserve true architects, freedom from jargon, and standardized blueprints - actual pictures of the technology being built. A client’s software construction project deserves a beginning, middle, and end. The final result should look like the original plan and do what was intended. Is that too much to ask?

But there can be no architects without clients. Who was Michelangelo without the Pope? At , we need clients to help us achieve our vision – which is amazingly simple, but dauntingly ambitious at the same time. We just want to transform the software construction industry with a simple, conceptual change. It will not happen unless clients expect and demand it.

Clients, unable to offer any erudite alternatives to technocrats, have not expressed outrage at software construction failures. These failures would not be accepted from the building profession where uninhabitable buildings are so rare, one built 800 years ago is a major tourist attraction in Italy.

Software failures and scrapped projects of the magnitude of the IRS debacle, on the other hand, are so common they rarely pierce the public consciousness, despite the squandering of billions of taxpayer dollars. At least the campanile in Pisa was finished and its irregularity is spectacularly pleasing.

Client outrage will emerge when it is understood that the failures in software construction are preventable with an architectural process. The ensuing client demand and raised expectations will fuel the transformation of the industry.  

Our success will be measured by the seal affixed to blueprints of successful software construction projects - successful according to the client's standards and expectations.

Please let us know what you think. We welcome your thoughts and also invite you to join our free client membership. We would like you to take those first steps with us, as the patrons of building architecture did 140 years ago. With membership, we can refer you to software architects who share our philosophy and give you access to our discussion groups, seminars, case studies and materials.