A while back we put a survey questionnaire to the architect community via Meetup.com and LinkedIn, which included questions such as:
- How long have you been in IT?
- How long have you been an architect?
- What Title best describes you as an architect?
- What did you do before you became an architect?
- Career progression: what role do you aspire to move into next?
- What is your biggest challenge as an architect?
- Do you feel you are effective as an architect?
- Why? Please tell us what you feel makes you effective / ineffective as an architect
- What advice would you give to new / aspiring architects?
Despite having 680 WSAF members on LinkedIn, and 142 on Meetup.com we only managed 10 responses.
In some ways it was far less than we were hoping for – given our numbers on paper. I do acknowledge that as organizers of the group, the WSAF isn’t perhaps as active as we’d like to be, however, it might also be a reflection of the local kiwi architect culture, and symptomatic of the channels we currently use to reach you all. Community engagement is an area we are conscious of and something we’d like to increase in future.
The Results
Whilst the low response rate may render the quantitative results less than statistically sound they did provide some interesting insights. Some of the questions were more qualitative provided some quite thought-provoking comments.
You can download the raw results here: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=2942088AAC497628!4940&authkey=!AJstOf7P6LaCOZU&ithint=file%2cxlsx
[The results (xlsx) and images posted here are hosted on Microsoft OneDrive, let me know if you are having trouble accessing them.]
Who Responded?
In terms of roles most of you were, unsurprisingly, Solution Architects or Enterprise Solution Architects:
How Long?
- How long have you been in IT?
- How long have you been an architect?
As you can see, most of the respondents have been in IT for 10 years or more, in fact mostly for 16 or more; but a relatively even spread of years experience as an “architect”:
Career Progression
We asked what people had done before they became an architect and what they think they’d like to do next. As you can see, software development is a common starting point (I notice we didn’t get any Infrastructure Architects responding) with Enterprise Architecture looking like the most popular next destination:
Effectiveness
I’m extremely pleased no-one felt categorically ineffective, but then there wasn’t exactly an over abundance of confidence either: half of our respondents answered “yes” whilst the others said (typically for architects) “It depends”:
Selected Comments
In closing, here’s a selection of comments we received to the more open-ended questions:
What is your biggest challenge as an architect?
“Inter-Personal communication, especially when doing Enterprise level work dealing with application level architects. Some cannot see the forest from the trees and want to re-litigate the “what” (strategy aspects) instead of focusing on the “how” (how to make it work to achieve the what outcomes).”
“Understanding the role within the political landscape, and being able to effectively convey this role to business and it people who don’t understand/value the role of an Architect.”
What do you feel makes you effective / ineffective as an architect?
“I think of myself effective when I align architecture with the business strategy and maturity. Not the best architecture, but the best fit architecture for an organisation at their particular maturity, budget and strategy level make me an effective architect.”
“Effective with a balance of inter-personal skills and technical abilities.”
What advice would you give to new / aspiring architects?
“Focus on the outcomes and what constitute success for the business, not so much the process of architecture (standards, practices, the next best thing), but more the product of architecture (alignment, value, outcomes).”
“Use Rozanski and Woods.”
Peruse Muse Infuse 