If you are considering a career as an IT Architect you need to pause for a moment and wonder if you want to label yourself as an 'Architect'.  While there is a general trend at the moment to clarify the term more carefully and formally, most of the people you run into will have there own preconception of what an architect is.  Lots of people run around IT giving themselves the architect title and, whether doing architecture or not, have given all aspiring architects a bad name.

So when positioning yourself as an architect, consider that the following types of architects have already set the perceptions of what an architect is.

The PowerPoint Architect

By far the most common type of architect is The PowerPoint Architect, these kinds of architects produce the best looking architectures on paper... I mean PowerPoint.  Great colours, no crossing lines and reasonably straightforward to implement... apparently.  The problem with PowerPoint architects is that they are so far removed from real implementation that architectures that they propose simply won't work.  The PowerPoint Architect is generally a consultant who, just before implementation is about to start, picks up their slides and moves to the next project - leaving everyone else to implement their pretty diagrams.  The PowerPoint Architect believes that software development is similar to doing animations in PowerPoint and infrastructure is about how to get your notebook connected to a data projector.

How to spot The PowerPoint Architect

The PowerPoint Architect gives him/herself away by scheduling presentations in meeting rooms and having so many slides that there is no time to go into the detail.  If the meeting has more business and project representatives than technical staff, it was probably organized by The PowerPoint Architect so that technical questions seem out of place and should be 'taken off-line'.  The PowerPoint Architect has also been known to use Visio.

The Matrix Architect

Named after 'The Architect' in the Matrix movie series, The Matrix Architect has been there so long that he/she doesn't know any other way.  Matrix Architects leaves no room for improvement, discussion or negotiation as the architecture was written by them eons ago and has worked fine, thank you very much.  Much like the scene in The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Architect has a personalised, well defended office and if you manage to get in, you simply have to leave by one of two doors - without getting a chance to explain yourself.

How to spot The Matrix Architect

The Matrix Architect normally has their own office and is well settled.  Technical books on CORBA, Betamax and other has-been technologies are proudly displayed on the shelves.  The Matrix Architect can also be spotted by their uncanny ability to work their way into meetings and throw curveball comments like "That's just like the SGML interface that we used on DECT and in my day..."

The Embedded Architect

The Embedded Architect creates architectures that are so huge and complex that removing them is similar to taking out your own liver.  Most of the time they do this for career stability or, if they come from an external organization are there to milk as much future profit out of projects as possible.

How to spot The Embedded Architect

The Embedded Architect is very difficult so spot during the embryonic stage when they are infecting the existing architecture and often once spotted it is too late.  The Embedded Architect often has a team of disciples that as a group understand the entire architecture, but individually know very little.  A requirement that new team members go on an induction course on the architecture is a sign that there may be an Embedded Architect somewhere within the organization.

The Hardware Vendor Architect

The Hardware Vendor Architect is actually a salesman with a reworked title.  The Hardware Architect's role is to point out the flaws in everyone else's architecture so that they can justify why the extra hardware expense is not their fault.  At Hardware Architect School, The Hardware Architect is trained in creating proprietary hardware platforms that create vendor lock-in.

How to spot The Hardware Vendor Architect

The Hardware Vendor Architect normally has a car full of pens, mouse mats and notepads emblazoned with some well-known brand which they use to assimilate the weak.  They also have huge expense accounts where they can take the entire data centre to lunch occasionally.  They are often heard saying things like 'You need a 24x7 99.999999% disaster recovery site'

The Auditor Architect

We are not sure of the origins of The Auditor Architect, because they are supposed to be auditing things, not creating architectures.  The Auditor Architect will always propose an architecture that uses spreadsheets for every possible system interface that requires each user to be a CA so that they can review the transactions before they are submitted (not to be confused with The Auditor Project Manager who uses spreadsheets for all documentation).  Since most organizations don't have that many CA's, The Auditor Architect represents a firm that can provide as many CA's as may be necessary.

How to spot The Auditor Architect

The Auditor Architect always wears a black suit, white shirt and an expensive tie in the latest fashionable colour and style.  The Auditor Architect will often go to great lengths to express that they are unbiased and just want to make sure that things are done correctly.  Most emails received from The Auditor Architect have spreadsheet attachments.

The Gartner Architect

The Gartner Architect has knows all the buzzwords and has all the supporting documentation.  They never actually put together a workable architecture but run ongoing workshops on the likelihood of the architecture looking a particular way at some point in the next six months to five years.  As soon as an architecture is established, The Gartner Architect uncovers some 'new research' that requires a suspension of the project while the architecture is re-evaluated.  Incidentally, sometimes The Gartner Architect is known as The Meta Architect.

How to spot The Gartner Architect

The Gartner Architect always does presentations with references to some research noted on every slide and the true test of The Gartner Architect is asking for the document that is being referred to - it won't materialize.  The Gartner Architect is often accompanied by a harem of PowerPoint Architects eager to get their hands on the material.  The Gartner Architect is often entertained by The Hardware Architect, provided that they represent products that are in 'The Magic Quadrant'.

The ERP Vendor Architect

True Architects for ERP systems do exist - but they hang out somewhere else, like in Germany, and not on your particular project.  There is no need for an architect on a system that if changed, self destructs within thirty seconds.  The ERP Vendor Architect is actually an implementation project assistant that is billed at a high rate.

How to spot The ERP Vendor Architect

The ERP Vendor Architect almost always has a branded leather folder of some really fun training conference that they went to in some exotic location with thousands of other ERP Vendor Architects.  A dead giveaway is if The ERP Vendor Architect and The Hardware Architect are exchanging corporate gift goodies - a sure sign that they are colluding do blame legacy systems for the poor performance.

The UML Architect

The UML Architect is not interested in any architecture that cannot be depicted using UML diagrams and spend a considerable amount of effort making sure that this happens.  The UML Architect lives in an object bubble and has no consideration that their intended audience never learned SmallTalk.

How to spot The UML Architect

The UML Architect is easy to spot from the documents that they produce.  All documents have a lot of stick-men, hang-men and and cartoon characters pointing at bubbles.  The UML Architect will always be able to describe the architecture by <<stereotyping>> it as something that you will understand.

The Beta Architect

The Beta Architect insists that the current version of whatever software you are using is going to be ridiculously out of date by the time the system goes live.  For that reason it is important that the development be done with the beta framework, operating system or development environment and not to worry, the product will be probably released before the system needs to go into production.

How to spot The Beta Architect

The Beta Architect normally wears a golf short with a large software vendors logo embroidered on the front and walks around with a conference bag suitably branded.  The Beta Architect normally comes from an external organization that has a partnership with a large vendor indicated by some metal, but always gold or platinum - bronze and silver partners are not worthy.

 

Simon Munro