Without it, a collection of architects are not a team. And, without goodwill from the developer and management community, the architecture is rejected in overt opposition or covertly ignored in favor of local design tuning and tinkering. They knew that to be successful, all three could not try to lead. This would cause too much division in the team. That is, they allowed him to set direction, make difficult decisions to break logjams, and generally lead the team.
Management supports the architecture team in making their decisions stick.
While you could freely discuss your concerns about some aspect of the architecture with him, if he decided the architecture should not be changed his decision reigned and you could use the crying towel to console yourself. If these things, and a good sense of humor, were not in place in good measure, this symbol of the loss of developer freedom would have raised much resentment. Add Your Strategies for Success Please share your successful architecture team practices or pitfalls with the community by posting them here. References Bredemeyer, Dana and Ruth Malan. Katzenbach, Jon and Douglas Smith, The Wisdom of Teams , Harper Business, 1993.