Some semi-random thoughts about seldom-used word…

According to the entry in the Cambridge Dictionary a nominalization is “the process of making a noun from a verb or adjective“;  The Merriam-Webster thesaurus includes “conclusion” as a synonym for decision; and Steven Wright has been quoted as saying “A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.”

It is like water becoming ice, except those are real nouns. A decision is made up of the best thinking at the time as applied to the knowledge available at the time (emphasis on “at the time”, which is influenced by environment and state of mind). Additional knowledge or further thought can move a decision back to deciding just as melted ice can flow again when the temperature changes.

According to the TOGAF framework, the Generic Role and Skills of the IT Architect includes “produces documentation of design decisions for application development teams or product implementation teams to execute”

The AWS Well-Architected Framework states “The process for reviewing an architecture is a constructive conversation about architectural decisions”. I would like to think that when that the conversation can move the nominalization back to a verb based on those conversations because “.The outcome of the review is a set of actions that should
improve the experience of a customer using the workload.”

© Scott S. Nelson