Enterprise architect

Enterprise architects are practitioners of enterprise architecture; a business management discipline that operates within large enterprises.

Role of enterprise architects

Enterprise Architects work with stakeholders, both leadership and subject matter experts, to build a holistic view of the organization's strategy, processes, information, and information technology assets. The role of the Enterprise Architect is to take this knowledge and ensure that the business and IT are in alignment. The enterprise architect links the business mission, strategy, and processes of an organization to its IT strategy, and documents this using multiple architectural models or views that show how the current and future needs of an organization will be met in an efficient, sustainable, agile, and adaptable manner.

Enterprise architects operate across organizational and computing "silos" to drive common approaches and expose information assets and processes across the enterprise. Their goal is to deliver an architecture that supports the most efficient and secure IT environment meeting a company's business needs.

Enterprise architects are like city planners, providing the roadmaps and regulations that a city uses to manage its growth and provide services to its citizens. In this analogy, it is possible to differentiate the role of the system architect, who plans one or more buildings; software architects, who are responsible for something analogous to the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) within the building; network architects, who are responsible for something like the plumbing within the building, and the water and sewer infrastructure between buildings or parts of a city. The enterprise architect however, like a city planner, both frames the city-wide design, and choreographs other activities into the larger plan.

Delivered successfully, an enterprise architecture has the potential to allow both the Business and IT strategies to enable and drive each other. Therefore, effective enterprise architecture may be regarded as one of the key means to achieving competitive advantage through information technology.

Responsibilities of enterprise architects

• Alignment of IT strategy and planning with company's business goals.
• Optimization of information management approaches through an understanding of evolving business needs and technology capabilities.
• Long-term strategic responsibility for the company's IT systems.
• Promotion of shared infrastructure and applications to reduce costs and improve information flows. Ensure that projects do not duplicate functionality or diverge from each other and business and IT strategies.
• Work with solutions architect(s) to provide a consensus based enterprise solution that is scalable, adaptable and in synchronization with ever changing business needs.
• Management of the risks associated with information and IT assets through appropriate standards and security policies.
• Direct or indirect involvement in the development of policies, standards and guidelines that direct the selection, development, implementation and use of Information Technology within the enterprise.
• Build employee knowledge and skills in specific areas of expertise.

Skills and knowledge

• Architectural Thinking - the ability to model any enterprise in a structure-behavior coalescence way.
• Systems Thinking - the ability to see how parts interact with the whole (big picture thinking)
• Knowledge of the business for which the enterprise architecture is being developed
• Interpersonal and leadership skills - servant leadership, collaboration, facilitation, and negotiation skills
• Emotional intelligence - self awareness, confidence, ability to manage conflict, empathy
• Communication skills, both written and spoken
• Ability to explain complex technical issues in a way that non-technical people may understand
• Knowledge of IT governance and operations
• Comprehensive knowledge of hardware, software, application, and systems engineering
• Project and program management planning and organizational skills
• Knowledge of financial modeling as it pertains to IT investment
• Customer service orientation
• Time management and prioritization

Collaboration

The Enterprise Architect often closely collaborates with:

• Business analyst
• System analyst
• Information architect
• Solutions architect
• Software architect
• Systems architect
• Application developer
• Release deployer
• IT Administrator
• Project manager
• Project management office
• CIO
• Business Leads

To be successful in large organizations, enterprise architecture requires a top-level mandate, executive buy-in, tools, deliverables, formal structures and governance, and resourcing. Other factors for success include business unit stakeholder buy-in, a non-centralist approach (federated effort with central coordination only), a strong theoretical base (get the basics right), a practical focus (avoid dogma), adaptable tools (evolve constantly), user and “business owner” feedback loops, as well as reinforcement through measurement.

See also

• Enterprise architecture

Further reading

• Professional Practice Guide for Enterprise Architects
• Enterprise Architecture Profession 10 Year Roadmap
• IBM Developer Works: Article on SOA user roles
• Daljit Banger Rise of the Enterprise Architect, British Computer Society, March 2006