The role of organizational politics in Software Engineering and Software Architecture design
The topic of organizational politics is not new. The concept surfaced in 1958 and in early 1980's the topic was actively studied and analyzed. There is no definitive guidance since it's a challenging topic to study; after all this is about the behavior of people. There are many factors that shape the game of politics: individual values and ethics, organization's structure and the way of life (e.g. "cooking books"), environmental conditions (e.g. market stress), and performance reward criteria (e.g. measuring and rewarding the wrong results). What's clear from research is that there is a distinction between an actual political behavior and a perception of a political behavior. For a software architect it's important to recognize and manage both.