Solutions vs.
Enterprise Architects: The Great LinkedIn Debate
By Steve Nunn, CEO, Association of Enterprise Architects
Over the past couple of months, the AEA discussion board on
LinkedIn has been
buzzing with an ongoing debate over the differences between Solutions vs.
Enterprise Architects and the benefits of each. This debate—which has generated well over 100 comments on
the forum—was prompted by a simple question: Why should we hire an Enterprise
Architect when we have so many great Solutions Architects?
The lively debate sparked by this question is one that EA
community is all too familiar with. Enterprise Architecture—what it is, why
it’s important, what we do as EA professionals—has been an ongoing debate for
many years. Most organizations still do not understand the function of
enterprise architecture nor do they understand why or how having an enterprise
architecture or having a staff of enterprise architects can help their
organization.
The difficulty in defining who we are and what we do is, in
part, because we deal in abstractions. Enterprise architects, by nature, work
with the big picture. In order to come up with the solutions needed to
architect an entire enterprise, we have to look at the big picture. We need to
be able to walk the walk of IT and talk the talk of business—and fill in the
gaps between the two. The ability to have a broad perspective, communicate the big
picture and come up with comprehensive solutions across an entire organization
is exactly what sets the Enterprise Architect apart from the Solutions
Architect. EA is an ongoing, never-ending function that is always evolving. In a
twist on the old saying, an EA’s work is never done. Solutions, on the other
hand, are just that—they solve a particular problem—they are project-oriented
with a beginning, middle and end (subject, of course, to updates as
requirements or regulations change).
Whether or not an organization needs Enterprise Architects
or Solutions Architects—I would argue that they likely need both—is a question
that each organization must ask itself. In small organizations, the roles may
in fact be interchangeable simply because roles in small organizations are
often less defined and people are required to do more. Large organizations, on
the other hand, absolutely need people in both roles in order to get things
done, just as any team needs both leaders and workers.
As has been reflected by this Great LinkedIn Debate, there
are many opinions out there as to what the roles of both positions should or
should not be, and those of us who care about this profession could continue
this discussion until the proverbial cows come home. But ultimately the larger
issues for us as a community of professionals are these:
- How do we end such debates?
- How do we raise our profiles within organizations
and validate our worth?
- How do we more easily articulate the separate
functions of these roles within organizations?
- How do we make sure that the C-Suite understands
why they need Enterprise Architects and Solutions
Architects?
Answering these questions is part of the work of a
professional organization such as ours. It’s the reason we exist—to help
professionals like you boost your hiring potential, keep up your skills,
interact with others within the profession and to be advocates for Enterprise
Architecture as a profession. It’s also the reason why the AEA is looking at
ways to elevate EA to the status of a profession so that people will understand
our role within organizations.
As with anything that deals in abstractions and intangibles,
we may never be able to put an end to debates such as why organizations should
hire an Enterprise Architects vs. Solutions Architects. But the more we can
work together as professionals to showcase the results of our work and help others
understand what Enterprise Architecture is and why it’s important through real,
measureable and tangible results, the further the profession will get toward making
the question moot.