Misunderstanding of roles in IT Architecture
One fascinating experience that I had over the years is the lack of understanding of roles in IT, especially in the area of IT architecture. I had to deal with many who thinks that architecture is just architecture and there is only 1 role for architecture, full stop.
This makes it very difficult when these people (including those in IT, from developers, ops managers, delivery managers, even Chief Information/Technology Officers, and I’m not kidding). Imagine a CI/TO who can’t recognize the difference in various architecture roles, treating Enterprise Architecture, Solutions Architecture, System Architecture, Solutions Designer, platform SME as the same.
Imagine being an Enterprise Architect that you have been told, it’s your role to provide end-to-end solutions architecture for projects, or solutions architect being told it is your responsibility to provide enterprise architecture artifacts. The keyword here is “you are responsible”, and “it’s your job/role”.
It is very common that, especially in small organisation, 1 person may perform multiple architecture roles, but ability to recognize the differences is still significant, as one will always have a primary role vs secondary/tertiary roles.
I have even been told that we don’t need a program architect to look after a large piece of transformation program. Each system SME should just make their decision as they are the experts. Well yes they are experts in their respective fields, but we don’t want to build Lego blocks that can’t connect. On top of that, there has to be one person who needs to be responsible/accountable for the end to end architecture, as it is often, impossible to get everyone to agree on a decision, especially when an SME is trying to be an “SME” in an area that is not their area of expertise. We all think that we know everything, but in reality, we do not. And there is no perfect solution, and it’s the role of a program architect or end-to-end architect who will make the final call.
Another common misunderstanding is, as a program architect or end-to-end architect, you must either be an expert in everything or you must not make final decision. First of all, no one knows everything. Secondly, end-to-end architecture is about collaboration, but an experience end-to-end architect should have enough experience to take input from various SMEs and make the final call to ensure the end-to-end architecture makes sense and suits the company’s need (short + long term).
This is something perhaps IT bodies should start defining and agree on what each of these roles mean and organisations should start adopting a standardized roles.
