Defining the Role of the Chief Architect
A simple model of architect types sets the stage for an in-depth survey of roles and responsibilities
by Janaki Akella and Chris Barlow

Posted March 5, 2004

As the chief architect in your company's IT organization, you are probably playing a variety of roles ranging from enforcing standards to identifying emerging technology trends. You are likely fielding a host of requests to support the growing and changing needs of the business in a timely and cost-effective manner. In addition, as top-line growth is becoming more and more challenging, your business is likely adjusting its cost structures and looking to you to provide leadership by cutting down legacy application maintenance costs, promoting software reuse, and putting in place a flexible architecture.

Add to this the explosion of strategic outsourcing, with which a greater emphasis is placed on clearly articulating the scope of work being outsourced than has been ever done before in any IT organization. The result is that you may find yourself having to define in detail not only the current systems solution but also the target to which you would like the outsourcer to move.

All of this begs the question of what exactly is your job definition. Here, we begin to shape the answer to this question by doing two things: providing a framework of four models for thinking about the role of a chief architect, and describing some of the top-of-mind issues that we have heard. We would like to add to this by hearing your answers to: What issues you are facing as an architect today?

To this end, we will run the Enterprise Architect Magazine's Chief Architect Survey. We hope that many of you will actively participate to help us shape the answer to this important question.

Four Models of a Chief Architect
The roles and responsibilities of a chief architect run along two axes (see Figure 1). The horizontal axis defines the spectrum of involvement required for the job from Visionary to Doer. The vertical axis defines the spectrum of technology expertise required for the job from Standard to Emerging. While the chief architect plays a myriad of roles in this framework, four distinct models emerge depending on the organization, the state of maturity of the architecture, and the particular application portfolio. The chief architect probably plays all four roles, but the key to his or her success is to focus on one or two depending on the current state of the architecture and the gap to the target architecture.

Model 1, Standards Enforcer, focuses on defining architecture and technology standards for all applications, infrastructure, and middleware layers; ensures standards are published, updated, and made widely available, and that all developer training includes review of architectural standards; enforces compliance to standards by defining project approval processes that include explicit architectural review and sign-off phases, and actively participates in software and hardware purchases; assists and educates but typically does not participate actively in each development project; and ensures maximum leverage of IT investments by advocating methods such as reuse of software for component/object/module library development and maintenance.

Model 2, Project Architect, includes the responsibilities described previously for a Standards Enforcer but also sees the role as participating actively in development projects; has a group of project architects who participate in the start phase and helps to architect solutions ensuring architectural compliance and component reuse; because these architects typically rotate through development projects, the size of the architecture group depends on the typical number of projects in the pipeline; and is involved in defining and implementing enterprise-wide security policies.

Model 3, Middleware Believer, includes the responsibilities described previously for a Standards Enforcer but focuses on integration strategies; believes that legacy systems will coexist with newer ones and therefore develops middleware-based architecture; and has significant expertise in middleware technologies.

Model 4, Emerging Technologist, focuses attention on emerging technologies to address business needs or to develop a competitive advantage; selects appropriate technology solutions and pilots these in specific business areas before adopting it more broadly as an enterprisewide standard; and belongs to industry standards bodies/consortiums and plays a key role in shaping the industry standards and processes. Keep this framework in mind as you answer the questions in the Chief Architect Survey. Now we'll describe some themes and questions. The answers to these questions will help ascertain which chief architect role(s) you are currently playing and help you to better articulate your responsibilities and value proposition.

Emerging Themes
We see four emerging themes in the job description of a chief architect: support business processes, prepare for outsourcing, put in place the capability to manage performance, and measure the impact of the architecture group. Each theme encompasses a number of key questions.

Business-process enablement – What is the optimal IT architecture to support the key business processes? What is the optimal level of investment in tools and technologies to support the business process? How do you identify which applications should be sunset, and what is the migration strategy for minimizing business disruption? How can the architecture support business flexibility given the uncertainties of changing product lines, scale, and market conditions?

Architectural implications of outsourcing – How do you evaluate the similarity/gap in solutions architecture of a business process outsourcer to what you need? What are the architecture pivots that ensure business flexibility given that the process is being outsourced?

Performance measurement and management – What information/data architecture helps measure the business performance across geographies and business units? What information/data needs to be shared across business domains, and how often? What are appropriate subject areas for a data warehouse? What are the relevant reports, metrics, and key performance indicators?

Business impact of architecture – How do you measure the business impact of architecture—with business or technical metrics, or both? What is the current state of maturity of the architecture?

These themes and questions will help get the conversation started. Help us go to the next step of defining what the roles and responsibilities of the chief architect should be by responding to our Enterprise Architect Magazine's Chief Architect Survey. (If you are not the chief architect, answer with your understanding of that role in your organization.) Part of the survey is multiple-choice to allow us to quantify the results, and part is open-ended so you can tell us which questions you are addressing. We will synthesize the results of the survey and let you know what we discover.

About the Author
Janaki Akella and Chris Barlow are in the business technology office of McKinsey & Company, where they focus on counseling senior business leaders on the effective use of technology. Contact Janaki at janaki_akella@mckinsey.com, and contact Chris at chris_barlow@mckinsey.com.