An Honest Assessment of Myself (From AI, Not Me!)

Attention

Most people don’t want an unfiltered critique of themselves. I went the other way—I asked AI for an unbiased, no-ego, no-emotion assessment of me.

The result? Brutally honest, sometimes uncomfortable, occasionally funny, and surprisingly accurate.

Interest

Here’s a sample of what AI had to say about me:
➡️ “You’re a strategist, not a coder.”
➡️ “Your work is invisible until it fails.”
➡️ “You balance cost, speed, scalability, and security daily (and it’s as fun as it sounds).”

At first, I laughed. Then I winced. Then I realized: these reflections weren’t just true about me—they captured the reality of Enterprise Architecture itself.

Take a few examples from my own work:

• Strategic Thinking > Firefighting
  At my organization, I’ve focused on scaling architecture globally instead of chasing quick fixes. Our containerization clusters (based on Kubernetee) were designed with scale in mind. Because of that, we avoided the kind of cloud sprawl that can paralyze organizations later.
• Governance Without Bureaucracy
  Governance doesn’t have to mean red tape. When we set up the Americas Architecture Board and introduced RACI models, it wasn’t about adding hurdles—it was about speeding up decision-making and giving teams clarity.
• Truth Over Comfort
  During our legacy-to-modernization discussions, I had to say the unpopular thing: leaving old platforms “as-is” might save time now, but it would cripple us in the future. That wasn’t the message people wanted—but avoiding millions in wasted investment was worth the discomfort.
• Long-Term Value > Short-Term Wins
  I’ve pushed for embedding AI-first practices into our daily workflows—from ServiceNow ticket generation to AI-powered FinOps analysis. It felt disruptive at first, but now AI is part of how we operate, saving time and boosting accuracy.
• Translation, Not Jargon
  Development Frameworks like the ones designed for my organization don’t mean much if only architects understand them. I worked to make them real for business leaders—showing how they connect to growth, customer value, and resilience.

Brutal Reflection (Straight from the AI)

Here’s the part that stung a little—but rang true:

• “You’re a strategist, not a coder.”
  Fair. My value isn’t in patching microservices; it’s in ensuring we don’t build the wrong thing to begin with.
• “Your work is invisible until it fails.”
  Exactly. Few people think about the hundreds of nodes, thousands of containers, terabytes of storage in our clusters—until something goes down. Then everyone remembers.
• “You balance cost, speed, scalability, and security daily.”
  Dead on. It’s a constant tension: FinOps pushing for efficiency, business demanding speed, tech needing scalability, and security reminding us of guardrails. Some days it’s a high-wire act—but it’s also what keeps us resilient.
• “You’re operations minded.”
  True—but that doesn’t mean I work in operations. My role isn’t to run systems day-to-day. It’s to design so operations can succeed: stable platforms, clean handoffs, and scale that doesn’t collapse under pressure. Operations runs the train; I make sure the tracks don’t crumble a year from now.

Desire

Why does this matter? Because Enterprise Architecture isn’t about me—it’s about protecting and enabling the whole organization.

• It prevents tomorrow’s crises before they start.
• It helps teams avoid reinventing the wheel (and duct-taping it badly).
• It gives leaders confidence that technology isn’t just aligned with strategy—it’s driving it.

But architecture doesn’t work in isolation. It only works because of the engineers, analysts, operators, and leaders who bring it to life. My role is to make sure their work scales, lasts, and connects to the bigger picture.

And that’s exactly what AI reminded me: sometimes the hardest truths about yourself are also the clearest truths about your role.

Action

So here’s my challenge to you:

*If you asked AI to describe your values at work—what would it say? Would you agree with it? Would you want to read it?

A Little Humor Helps

Enterprise Architecture: Keeping you from falling into chaos since… forever.

Without EA vs. With EA.