The Nitty Gritty: Can you explain to a CEO what makes an architect different?
Well we've been at this for some time and over the last few years have been able to answer this with more and more certainty. However before I post it I want to get some feedback from all of you.
CEO walks in to your office/cube/etc and asks,"I know why I hire good developers/PMs/BAs/IT Ops/etc, so why do I hire architects? What makes them different than other staff? And dont give me any of those mumbo-jumbo technical answers. Just boil it down to one sentence why I should let you keep your high-salary job." What do you say?
Try to answer in one sentence. Try to make sure the answer is VERY clearly differentiated from other roles. For example, "Developers write quality code based on business requirements.", "PMs deliver projects on time and under budget."
...And yes I will post the answer that has come from our research in the next couple of days.
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An architect is someone who translates wishes, expectations, and dreams (e.g. survive in this financial crisis) of a client (you, Mr CEO) into a workable plan and guides others (developers/PMs/BAs/IT Ops/etc) in executing that plan.
See as well https://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2008/10/discussionenterprise-architect-user.html
In my experience, enterprise architects work simultaneously in the following positions :
- Scribe who keeps up to date the documentation about EA artefacts and the relationships between them. This is the traditional role of an enterprise architect.
- Scout who brings new technologies into the enterprise.
- Salesman who finds good arguments for investments in not-so-obvious improvements.
- Superman who is usually asked to provide a quick rescue for a rotten IT project, often by completing during the weekend work that should have been done over many man-months!
- Sociologist who has to understand the concerns and fears of everyone in the enterprise.
- Servant who is at the service of all others in the enterprise.
- Scientist who uses scientifically proven methods in his/her work.
- Student who is ready to learn quickly new technologies, new tools and new business domains.
- Shepherd who can guide others.
- Secretary “de luxe” who helps others to do some work (although this may be considered as a rather low qualification, it is nonetheless important to achieve the common goal).
- Skipper who can lead complex projects.
- Swiss-knife which can solve any problems.
Thanks,
AS
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