Architects

[Notascooby]

So basically there is a high level Enterprise Architect, who may not have much (or any) technical knowledge but has detailed knowledge of the business at a high level and has the ability to transfer business objectives into usable requirements. Under them is the Solution Architect who usually pulls together multiple Technical (of what ever name, Application, Network, Infrastructure, Secuirty etc) Architects who have detailed knowledge of their specific technology.

So in that respect an EA is sort of a career progression for Business Analysts? Technical Architects are the old fashioned SME for which ever technology they work with and Solution Architects have a bit of both?

In the past I have thought about what the next skill I should learn, not to move away from my area of work but to better understand those I work with so maybe TOGAF might be a good bet as well as SCRUM Master to get an idea of the Design and Development phase of the SDLC

As Roy Walker would say...."It's good but not quite right - 5 seconds, here we go"

The BA would become a Business Architect - he could become an EA, which should be mainly about direction setting, patterns and governance but as mentioned "enterprise" banded around instead of "senior".

So you've started off describing a Business Architect.

As for the SA - you'll find they come from all walks of life, so some will be stronger in certain areas. i.e. I know cock all about tin and very little about networks but I'm strong on applications coming from a development background.

The SA is usually the PM's righthand man/woman - he coordinates the design deliverables and pushes it through the governance process. The bigger the org, the further removed the SA from the coal face (in general) and the more likely that all the architects piss off to an ivory tower and lose sight on what their primary aim is - delivery and concentrate more on making project jump through a miriad of hoops and protract the delivery timelines.

Unfortunately this control is also what is necessary within big organisations to prevent the proliferation of duplicate and unsupported technolgies and piss poor design.