A large part of why different teams end up building the same thing is it's not actually the same thing. The details are frequently different is subtle but important ways.
Often building a single piece of software to assist 4 teams is several times more difficult than simply rewriting that code for each of the teams. Sure, that’s not always true, but for such generic needs you can generally use or start an open source project.
IMO, the best of both worlds is to have an architecture team that approves designs created by a developer team. Ego often gets in the way, but the advantage is ‘Architects’ can keep track of wider segments of the organization when you treat them more like building inspectors than building Architects. With the added advantage that they can help teams cross pollinate vs. trying to come up with an ideal design in a vacuum.
Totally agree -- but the job function of the architect is different than that of a developer. Usually the architects are more concerned about architecture patterns and intercompatibility, i.e. making sure everyone is using the same messaging bus, same primary keys, etc. Hence my comment that architects should really be defining some base technical requirements, but leave most of the internal implementation details up to the dev groups.
Often building a single piece of software to assist 4 teams is several times more difficult than simply rewriting that code for each of the teams. Sure, that’s not always true, but for such generic needs you can generally use or start an open source project.
IMO, the best of both worlds is to have an architecture team that approves designs created by a developer team. Ego often gets in the way, but the advantage is ‘Architects’ can keep track of wider segments of the organization when you treat them more like building inspectors than building Architects. With the added advantage that they can help teams cross pollinate vs. trying to come up with an ideal design in a vacuum.