Informatica Perspectives

What does it take to make a good enterprise architect?

In my previous post, I mentioned the five top qualities that are essential for enterprise architects. These individuals are the critical bridge between business and IT, and can help ensure the success of important initiatives such as data warehousing, business intelligence, and service oriented architecture.

1 - As noted previously, to be able to conceptualize and promote data management initiatives, the EA needs to be well-respected and influential. This is the first quality to look for.

2- The EA needs to be well versed in and able to emphasize methodology, modeling, and governance. Ron Schmelzer, partner with ZapThink, says individuals from the development side may be pressed into EA roles, but may not be qualified. "Sure, there might be many 'paper architects' - that is, those that claim EA and/or SOA skills on their resumes or in their career history, but much of that experience will be attendance at a few vendor-heavy SOA courses, the development of Web services-centric interfaces, and a sore lack of any methodology, modeling, service lifecycle, or governance experience to speak of," he pointed out.

"Yes, it might just be that the biggest force gating widespread adoption of SOA is not the technical complexity of SOA projects (one can actually say that the technology part is relatively trivial), but rather the organizational, architectural, and skill gap that most companies have in making this architectural change a reality." EAs bring together these skills.

3- Great EAs need to be technologically and politically "neutral." Gartner's Scott Bittler has more to say on this important quality. "Unfortunately, many strong technical people are also quite biased in their views toward vendors/products and tend to 'go with what they know,'" he explains. "Architects must be vendor/product-neutral and maintain an objective perspective. Likewise, it is important to understand enough about the broad range of technologies that an architect can engage in discussion with technical experts and not be swayed by inappropriately biased personal agendas in technical decisions."

4 - High-performing EAs also should be articulate, persuasive, and good salespeople. "Enterprise architects must spend substantial time communicating and educating," says Bittler. "Therefore, it is important that they have the skills to clearly communicate ideas in a persuasive, compelling manner… Effective enterprise architects have the rare ability to zoom out and be able to conduct a worthwhile discussion about business strategy with the CEO and, a minute later, be in a technical expert's office with a zoomed-in mindset discussing technical details without getting lost."

5 - Finally, EAs need to have enthusiastic qualities. EAs should have a passion for life, work, and EA, Bittler says. "Far too many architects are rendered much less effective simply due to a lack of enthusiasm in their communication about EA," he says.

At a time where the ability to leverage information and data means competitive advantage, every business needs an extraordinary pool of knowledge talent that not only understands the power of technology, but also how it can be applied to business growth. Enterprise architects fill this role quite effectively.