I just finished a slideshow about Enterprise Architecture for People&Technology.
Here is the contents of the last slide.
The Enterprise Architect:
- Must have rather complete profile:
- Understands the business
- Knows the strengths/weaknesses of the complete application portfolio
- Understands the technology required to succeed
- Can compensate (nobody is perfect) if
- Has an open mind and is creative (thinking out of the box)
- Can communicate
- Is eager to learn (business, applications, technology)
- Establishes a method for documenting (or rather painting: architecture is an Art) the 3 architectures layers and their relationships
- Is capabable of abstraction, can combine top-down, bottom-up and middle-out problem resolution techniques.
- Can explain the gap between the current and the future architecture and propose concrete, actionnable transformation roadmaps
- Can try to promote ICT architecture best practices (TOFAG, UML, ITIL…) at the business level but it’s not always a good idea (Ex: ICT Vs legal description of a product or service). Over an ICTer, I prefer someone who knows the business and has methods to document it in a structured way
- Is a maestro at the service of the CEO : you are looking for Leonardo Da Vinci