EA staffing and competencies

In The EA Game Project we use System Dynamics model(s) to model the enterprise architecture practice. The models cover the following areas: EA staffing and competencies; EA Manager’s role; Documentation process; EA tools;  Stakeholder communications; Organizational development; Project governance; and Economy.

Let us look at one of the models: EA staffing and competencies:

The EA Game currently operates with the following roles:

• Solution Architect (SA)
  The role of the solution architect is to be the liaison between the stakeholders in the organization and the EA function. The role posses some architectural flair, but does not participate in the actual documentation of the architecture. Instead, the role of the SA is to attend meetings with the stakeholder to identify important artifacts, make EA part of the organizational governance structures, and identify where the different artifacts can be found.
• Business Architect (BA)
  The role of the business architect is to document and design the business architecture to increase the architectural coherency and alignment. The BA can use EA tools to document the business architecture and provide design in form of consulting and reviews of enterprise projects, programs and strategic initiatives. These reviews are based on framed IT-principles, standards and common knowledge of the enterprise architecture.
• Technical Architect (TA)
  Much like the BA, the role of the technical architect is to document and design architecture, now just the IT architecture. Similar to the BA, the TA can utilize tools are method to get the job done.
• Enterprise Architecture Manager (EAM)
  The Enterprise Architecture Manager (EAM) is the role most close to the senior management and the role which possess the greatest organizational empowerment. The EAM can try to obtain insight into the future strategic direction of the organization, attempt to empower and stress the importance of EA and inform stakeholders about the present and future situation for the EA function. The overall aim of the EAM is to get EA integrated further in the enterprise.
• Key Account Manager (KAM)
  The role of the Key Account Manager is to represent the EA function, the IT domain and the business domain respectively. Because of this neutrality, the KAM is suited to resolve interdepartmental issues and reduce the resistance to e.g. the utilization and integration of EA. Additionally, the KAM can identify strategic programs and projects which might benefit from either consulting or reviews by the TA/BA architects.

The different architects can be trained (externally or internally) to better meet competency requirements.

We consider expanding this part of the model. Could be in adding more detailed competencies, e.g., technical architects who know about cloud computing, master data management, ERP, this-and-that.

Any suggestions?

According to the TOGAF Architecture Skills Framework, the EA team must have these skills:

• Generic Skills: – typically comprising leadership, teamworking, inter-personal skills, etc.
• Business Skills & Methods: – typically comprising business cases, business process, strategic planning, etc.
• Enterprise Architecture Skills: – typically comprising modeling, building block design, applications and role design, systems integration, etc.
• Program or Project Management Skills: – typically comprising managing business change, project management methods and tools, etc.
• IT General Knowledge Skills: – typically comprising brokering applications, asset management, migration planning, SLAs, etc.
• Technical IT Skills: – typically comprising software engineering, security, data interchange, data management, etc.
• Legal Environment: – typically comprising data protection laws, contract law, procurement law, fraud, etc.