Solutions Architecture … what does it look like?

Nov 232007

I am in the process of creating a new role for our Institute called a Solutions Architect. In the past few years, we have put together a strong Business Analysis practice to gather requirements at the front end and a solid Project Management practice to deliver at the back end. What has been missing is the middle … solutions architecture.

I tried to take my Enterprise Architect job description and morph it but am not satisfied. So I did what everyone else does … Google for some help. Here are some great posts I found.

Karthik Vijayakumar posted a great diagram of where solutions architects fit. This is a great picture of how the various architectures fit together. EA has overall governance while SA delivers in a narrow band of architecture – over and over with each project.

Adrian Campbell built on Karthik’s post and spoke about how Enterprise Architects work in the top 2 rows of the Zachman Framework (broad and shallow) and the Solutions architects work in the bottom 3 rows (narrow and deep).

If anyone wants to share their job descriptions for a solutions architect, I would be very grateful. Also I will post the job desc that I come up with for your consideration.

Thanks Karthik and Adrian!