It is true that the “Cloud” public or private enables transformation of the Technical Architecture through the unification of computing, networking and storage systems into a single compute utility, distributed across a collection of commodity hardware and offered on demand under the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering.

It is true that the “Cloud”  transforms the Application & Data Architectures, re-engineering the software and database architectures, to one based on Software as a Service (SaaS)

And more importantly “Cloud” transforms the Business Architecture, changing the Target Operating model & accelerating speed to market for new products and services.

“Cloud” can also be the catalyst for  a real transformation  in the way organisations conduct Enterprise Architecture (EA).  

Cloud architectures will move the EA  emphasis from standardisation,  reuse, application portfolio management and IT delivery to Business Strategy enablement,  adaptable & fast execution and continuous Business Innovation. Innovation that due to cloud computing can be implemented and tested faster and less expensively than before.

Will cloud, also transform the entire IT organisation into a cloud service broker? Only time will tell.

The only thing I would like to add to the list  as a number one rule for any employee that works for me is:

“Don’t take yourself too much seriously”

Enjoy!

“Here are seven key qualities I look for.

#1 Intelligence: Nothing beats raw intelligence, the ability to think clearly, to frame one’s thoughts, to use appropriate examples, to abstract. Intelligent people create intelligent solutions. Intelligent people are interesting to work with. The problem with traditional hiring today is that people are pre-selected for interviews based on some arbitrary measure of experience in the industry (why five years and not three or seven?) or the stated knowledge of a tool or technology (is your resume not full of buzzwords?). But how often do you see the requirement of intelligence?

#2 Integrity: As leaders, we put our utmost trust in people. As the experience of many political leaders suggests (President Obama’s effort in putting the Cabinet together is the most recent), integrity is not to be taken for granted and its lack in a subordinate can be very damaging indeed.

#3 Enthusiasm: Another powerful internal motivator, it cannot be taught. It is, however, said to be contagious. The upbeat take on life, events, and adversity is essential in today’s environment.

#4 Curiosity: The drive to learn, challenge, question, and try to understand is incredibly important if the team’s performance, growth, and the ability to innovate is of any significance at all. I don’t know how to develop it in someone lacking it. Do you?

#5 Diversity: One of the fallacies of hiring is approaching it as if people were screws — state the length, the diameter, the head shape, and the type of the thread, and expect them all to be the same for the immediate project at hand. This approach is demeaning for the candidate and limiting (possibly, damaging) for the organization. Recently, an IT executive lamented on his efforts to find a job after being laid off. It seems, he said, that 20 years of diverse experience, solid leadership, and great results are not as important as whether he managed a particular system. This is the reality. I look for people with complimentary skills and experiences, which not only make the team so much more powerful in terms of the breadth of collective knowledge, it also encourages teamwork and learning (we all need each other), and creates a team that delivers much more than a multiple of the individual effort.

#6 Teamwork. There is a small proportion of the population unable to work in a group. They may be great at what they do, highly intelligent, and have solid values, but it’s a team we are building, right?

#7 Sociability: What kind of people do you like to work with? Friendly, helpful, with a sense of humor? So do I

There are mountains of research to support the impact of the immediate line manager on employees and the business. Having a good line manager means having a team that’s productive and engaged. You increase productivity and employee engagement when you have good line managers. We’ve known this for decades. But still most companies don’t pay attention.

Good line managers are the ones that:

• like helping other people succeed

• willing to make decisions and take responsibility for results

• willing to talk about engagement & performance

• happy to be trained in communication & confrontational skills

• believe in themselves

• know what they are talking about

None of this is simple. It won’t be quick. But if what you want is an engaged workforce, do the things that create a good set of line managers. Engage them and good things will follow.

Strategies are about “what” we choose to do.  Tactics are about “how” we choose to do it. It is often easier to change the “how” we do things than the “what”.

That’s why developing a strategy is so much harder than developing tactics. Strategies eliminate alternatives and set us toward a specific direction. Those choices appear far more risky than a typical tactic. The thing about tactics is that they are more flexible. If one doesn’t work, you often have time to try another.

Strategies are usually medium or long term (3-5 years). Tactics are about this year. Strategies are the investments of resources that build and grow an organisation. Tactics are the day to day actions that get organisations achieve their annual KPIs & Managers achieve their annual bonuses…

Fundamentally Strategy without Tactics is futile and Tactics without Strategy is pointless. My experience is that those who claim to be tactical (and not Strategic) usually mean they don’t like thinking about hard problems. Sometimes those claiming to be strategic are just vague and disconnected.

Clear strategy and effective tactics is the winning combination that have equaled success in the past and will in the future.

At least 10 years of IT experience. This experience could all be in application development, or it could come from a combination of development and another IT domain. A variety of experience across roles is a plus, especially in areas such as infrastructure, application, and data management. The ideal candidate would have a deep expertise in one or two verticals in addition to a broad knowledge base. .

An architecture mindset.A solution architect should be a strong problem-solver. You should be looking for more than a developer who just codes, head down. The candidate should also be able to juggle a broad set of competing functional-level requirements while also considering the near- and long-term impact on nonfunctional requirements such as performance, scalability, and reliability.  You should also look for someone with an understanding of EA concepts around best practices, standards, and industry trends including service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM).

Leadership and mentorship skills. Interpersonal skills are a must. Not only do good candidates demonstrate the ability to earn trust from others, but they should also be able to influence their teams in the right direction and still know when to compromise. Strong communication skills is a must. A solution architect needs the ability to communicate across different domains, articulate a solution to all parties, and stitch that solution together. The best candidate will have all these skills plus will use creativity in applying them.

If your company plans to hire externally, define the job description and qualifications in specific terms. Spend the time (and budget) to get the right people the first time around — even if that means taking longer to find them. Then have a training plan that will help them acclimate to the specifics of your company.

Enjoy reading!

Kostas

The Makeup of an Enterprise Architect

At its most basic definition, the role for today’s enterprise architects involves conceptualizing and creating development and operational models that encompass all aspects of an organization’s application and data infrastructures, including the creation of a “blueprint” by which to guide future development and decision making. Perhaps most importantly, the role requires a leader, and it also calls for equal parts visionary, evangelist, strategist, devil’s advocate, and consultant. These characteristics are crucial for an architect to affect change, articulate and sell a vision, conceptualize a solution, evaluate approaches, and provide strategic advice to those implementing a solution.

Visionary. As visionaries, modern enterprise architects must be on top of current technologies and understand how they might be used to solve challenges today and in the future. They must be able to identify and work with stakeholders to collect, aggregate, and evaluate requirements in light of current and future technology, resources, and budgets. They must also understand the overall business strategy of the organization to ensure components of the architectural vision align with those of management and other stakeholders. Finally, enterprise architects must be able to articulate their vision to effectively inform and demonstrate support for the organization’s primary business objectives.

Evangelist. As evangelists, enterprise architects must express their architectural vision across numerous internal and external stakeholders. This expression can call for diplomacy, tact, salesmanship, and tenacity. Successful enterprise architects are attuned to organization politics and adept at navigating the channels necessary to gain critical adoption of their concepts by the organization’s business audience. Rarely holding responsibility for budget, architects serve as mediators among the business requirement generators and those responsible for executing IT solutions. This role calls for tolerance of ambiguity in requirements and translatory skills to be able to convert business objectives to technical strategy that will guide IT to solutions.

Strategist. Enterprise architects must also take an overall system view of the business that encompasses all application and data domains, relevant technologies, and development processes. The fact that individual business processes span applications and technologies requires a broader perspective than the myopic view of a single application, on a single technology. Like the architect charged with designing transportation thoroughfares in a city like Boston, enterprise architects can soon find themselves in the middle of their own Big Dig. It is in this area that the lines are often blurred between development management and architecture. Problems for enterprise architects, however, are less defined usually and often unstructured. They are more focused on the ramifications of changing or introducing new code into the overall ecosystem and how it will affect the business stakeholders.

Devil’s advocate. In addition to playing a key role in the software delivery process, enterprise architects have to ensure all needs are being met and thus play the role of devil’s advocate. There are times when adding an application or functionality is simply not in the best interest of the organization. Enterprise architects must weigh the value of the functionality against the impact of the change to the application ecosystem, resources at hand, and future of the technology landscape. Architecting a good solution and architecting the right solution for the organization may not be the same thing. For example, it may not be prudent to automatically execute on the business’s request to build in complex features to an existing legacy application if the future direction is to drive applications to the Web. In this instance, it would be the responsibility of an architect to weigh the current business implications that would result from developing the new features on the legacy platform against the benefits of architecting the functionality on a newer more agile platform.

Trusted advisor. The real value in the role enterprise architects can play are as consultants during the planning stage. All too often enterprise architects are asked to fix a problem, such as the rationalization of a dysfunctional application ecosystem. The more that architects are involved up front in the planning and strategy stages of a project, the more apt the project is to fit in with existing and future frameworks. Additionally, by establishing their presence as trusted advisors to the business and as interpreters for development, enterprise architects create value for their roles both upstream and downstream in the organization.