What makes an Enterprise Architect stand out in a crowd of architects?

Architects are crucial. There are a ton of different kinds of architects out there. There are architects who specialize in business processes. There are architects who specialize in infrastructure. There are architects who specialize in designing solutions. There are even architects who specialize in messaging, telephones, and even exchange. But what makes someone an Enterprise Architect?

Enterprise Architects (EA) have a broad expertise and can fulfil many roles in the organization. They can help out in a pinch as an analyst, developer, tester, or even a network engineer. Other times, they partner with the business to develop strategies to grow the business. And sometimes, they are part time inventors finding new technology to grow the business. But their most important role is to be fortune tellers and plan ahead for future needs.

The EA always sits in the business. Sometimes, they sit in the CTO office. Sometimes they sit with in an application development group. But either way, they have the key responsibility of bridging the gap between IT and the business. For EAs to be most successful, they should be doing the following:

Business Consultant—An EA understands your business. They identify challenges facing the business by listening to what is going on and current trends. They build strategy decks to help the business identify opportunities to improve and find ways to make progress to solving them.

Technology Visionary—An EA understands the past and future of technology. They see how the current trends and technology can be used to improve the landscape. They advocate for the changes by proving technology and building consensus around how the technology can improve the company.

Mentor and Coach—An EA builds up those around the company. They provide expert advice on projects. They teach others what to look for in requirements and design deliverables. They make everyone better around them.

Vendor Manager--An EA maintains relationships with all your vendors. They understand the roadmaps of each software vendor. They influence the vendor’s roadmap to get needed features. They incorporate new features into application roadmaps.

Insurance Package—An EA is the last defense when things go wrong. They are the ones who collect and organize everyone when a problem cannot be solved. They are the ones when projects go awry that figure out how to get it back on track.

There are a lot of titles out there that add a specialization to the title of Enterprise Architects. I’ve seen posts for Infrastructure Enterprise Architect that only focus on hardware or a Java Enterprise Architect that is really good at Java. But the truth is Enterprise Architects need to be good at a lot of things. They may have specialties in specific areas; but they have to be well rounded so that they can consider everything that goes into the design or decision.

An Enterprise Architect plays many roles. But at the core, they steer ship looking at both the next port of call and future destinations. When the ship is sinking, they find a way of fixing it. They make the complex into simple so everyone can see the problem and agree to the solution. Every organization needs a great enterprise architect.