Archie, the AI Product Architect for CIOs and CTOs Seeking to Achieve Better Software Development Outcomes

Introduction

A CTO once told me, “I don’t want my software engineer to think!” That statement struck me. Engineers are incredibly smart and well-paid – why wouldn’t anyone want them to use their greatest asset to its fullest? Engineers are not rote workers. They are trained to solve problems and are highly skilled in the software development languages and approaches that most people simply don’t understand.

As I let the words settle in, I realized what he really meant was he was sick and tired of receiving poor requirements and specifications from his internal customers – a problem that has plagued software development since the dawn of the computing industry.

There is always pressure to break ground and start coding – even when the up-front work isn’t finished.

Missed timelines, missed budgets, and missed expectations are almost always blamed on the engineering teams. Yet, there has rarely been a project that was undertaken with high-quality and complete inputs prior to breaking ground or during agile development sprints. 

CIOs and CTOs are directly in the line of fire when things go wrong; while having enough qualified product professionals deployed to, or supporting the business units, is really hard to achieve.

Empowering the Engineers to Think

Unlike civil engineering disciplines, there is no civil code, permits and inspections in software development. Software development is treated more like an art form than a true engineering discipline. Processes and norms are typically set up for each organization to define, embrace, and enforce – some do this better than others.

Perhaps a better construct to consider is “I don’t want my engineers to use their imaginations.” Let them think all day long, but arm them with complete and well-constructed documentation describing what needs to be built.

Enabling a New Kind of Developer Experience

“Developer Experience” typically refers to the user interface engineers come in contact with when using an API, open-source project or development tool. What’s missed is that much of the experience engineers have relates to the business and product professionals they interact with. Tools such as Jira and Confluence have made great strides in addressing the software development lifecycle – but spend a few minutes scouring Jira tickets, and you will likely find room for improvement. 

These deficiencies often lead to big problems. These problems then lead to more processes, meetings, quality assurance needs, and general bureaucracy and finger-pointing. This doesn’t support a great developer experience.

Enabling an amazing developer experience will result in happy, motivated engineers who thrive on making internal stakeholders happy.

Crossing the Chasm with Generative AI

Generative AI offers an amazing opportunity to revolutionize this part of the process, resulting in transformational software development outcomes.

This is why Archie, the AI Product Architect, was created. It allows technology groups to support their constituents with an AI-enabled journey from ideation to requirements definition, specifications and designs.

Archie eliminates ambiguity, miscommunication, and mistakes. It elevates the software development lifecycle; supporting technology leaders and the organizations they run to become customer-centric delivery machines.

The AI Product Architect

Using Archie is like assembling a team of high-performing product professionals to serve each of your business units. It brings superpowers to bear in consuming inputs from these internal customers. Archie allows anyone to enter a prompt describing what needs to be built in human terms and then rapidly delivers full requirements, specifications, and designs in a matter of minutes – rather than months! Instead of accumulating a huge backlog of projects and disappointed business units developing shadow applications, Archie puts innovation in the fast lane and technology executives in the driver’s seat.

Keeping Humans in the Loop

No one benefits from complexity in the software development lifecycle – your technology organization doesn’t, and your business units certainly don’t. Generative AI affords individuals the opportunity to greatly decrease the complexity of the software development lifecycle while also remaining in control of the process by interacting with the AI and iterating on its output – to the benefit of all involved.

The Archie-Enabled Team

Archie is the most important “next hire” in your IT organization. Archie has made it possible for technology organizations to rapidly transform to serve the needs of their customers because AI doesn’t rest, costs a fraction of the human equivalent, and any advancements and enhancements in Archie’s superpowers immediately accrue to you.

AI has made its way into our lives faster than any disruptive technology before it ever has. Technology organizations that embrace it will reap the benefits; while those that do not risk bogging down the business units they serve. 

To learn more, try Archie at www.archie-ai.com.