Creating Results in the Short Run while Working in the Long Run

World-class marketects approach their task from a perspective of time that easily distinguishes them from those less skilled. Instead of listening to what customers want now (easy), they extrapolate multiple streams of data, including current requests , to envision what customers will want 18 to 24 months in the future (hard). To them, the current release is ancient history, and they often use past tense to refer to the features for the next release that are supported in the current tarchitecture as these requirements stabilizeeven though this next release may be ten or more months in the future. World-class marketects know that when a feature motivates a new capability or other fundamental change to the tarchitecture they must watch it carefully , for a mistake here may not only hurt their ability to secure future customers but also harm their ability to support existing customers. Envisioning the future on behalf of customers, even when they can't articulate what they want, is the world-class marketect's key distinguishing feature.

Like their marketect counterparts, world-class tarchitects also extrapolate multiple streams of data and envision a technological future that provides superior value to their customers. One of the key reasons certain tarchitectures, such as the IP addressing scheme or the 5ESS phone switch, have provided enduring value is simply that the key tarchitects behind them envisioned a future and built for it.