What is IT Architecture and what do Architects do?

Seems like an obvious question which should have an obvious answer, yet it has sparked debate in recent months amongst some very clever people.  The recent certifications by Microsoft and the Open Group have fanned the flames of questioning and discussion.

I would like to think the need to understand architecture and the related role has to do with overall maturity of IT – where business is demanding more credible and qualified senior staff on their projects and the technologists are trying to be more specific, explicit and disciplined about their trade.  While I believe that there is an element of this, I suspect that the main driver of the current wave of interest is personal career aspirations.  Allow me to explain.

Depending on what date you believe the dot-bomb bubble burst, we are about five years on from the end of the dot-com era.  In that time, most of the developers who climbed on the bandwagon have either thankfully gone to another industry or have managed to hang on and become more experienced and senior technical staff.  Corporate IT is also more stable and has trashed many of the outsourcing projects - leaving a technically strong pool of resources within their own organization.

Someone who has been in development for five years or more begins to pay attention to the next rung of the corporate ladder and when looking at the people who are in a higher salary bracket – their eyes quickly fall on ‘The Architect’.  Not many developers want to become IT managers, dealing with budgets and other painful stuff – nor do they want to become Business Analysts producing lots of documentation that is never read. In their eyes ‘The Architects’ seem to have a cool job – good money and the freedom to play around with technology as much (or little) as they feel like.

I can almost picture the discussion:

<fade in to glass-windowed office with motivational posters on the wall of rowing teams>

[Developer]: I want to discuss my career path here at <deleted>

[Manager]: Great idea, we have lots of opportunities and value your contribution to the organization.  We have good career paths as a project manager or a business analyst.

[Developer]: I want to be ‘An Architect’

<pause>

[Manager]: umm… Great idea!  But you don’t fit the profile.

[Developer]: Why not?

[Manager]:  You need more than five years of experience

[Developer]: I've been *here* for longer than that.

[Manager]: Oh...

<pause>

[Manager]: and you need leadership skills!

[Developer]: I’ve been team leader on my team for three years!

[Manager]: Yes, but you need other stuff

[Developer]: Like what?

[Manager]: Stuff like…. stuff like…. umm..  politics.  Yes! You need to be able to do politics! And I’m sure there are lots of framework thingies too! And you need to know what ‘The Big Picture’ is!

[Developer]: You’re blowing smoke up my butt aren’t you?

[Manager]: Not at all!  I’ll get the details from HR

<begins typing>

Dear HR,

Please forward me the latest job spec for ‘Architect’...

While I don’t believe that the role of architect has been entirely defined by someone in HR I think that the bottom up demand for clarity of architecture by development resources has been a major driver in the current need to clarify the architecture domain.  Some existing architects have assigned the title to themselves and are now being pressed to be more precise about what it is that they do – primarily by the developers on their own teams.

I think it is great that architects are being put under pressure and those that have the skills and experience will flourish while the rest will fade away.  It means that not only will we have better architects and hopefully better architectures in the medium term, but also will have the opportunity to lay the paving stones for the next batch of architects moving up in the ranks.

I ask only one thing – please debate this amongst your peers to come up with your definitions; don’t leave it up to HR.

Simon Munro

Some links to other people describing what an architect does

Bobby Woolf (IBM)

Miha (Microsoft Certified Architect)

Ruth Malan (Bredemeyer Consulting)

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee (Dr Dobbs)

Allan Hoffman (Monster Tech Jobs Expert)