UNKNOWN DESIGN

We often find it useful to look at building architecture and see if lessons learned there apply in our domain.
Though there have been building architects for as long as we have built structures, the regulated profession
of building architecture is less than 150 years old. Ancient, traditional cultures and languages used the
same word for both builder and architect. Construction was an integrated craft. The master mason or carpenter knew how to design structures, estimate costs, assemble labor and materials, and manage the construction process from foundation to roof. With the industrial revolution came new materials, machines,
techniques, regulations, etc. And along with all this came a proliferation of highly specialized subcontractors, who handled each specialized problem. This redefined the role of the general contractor, whose labor
force built less and less of the building. The specialized details of construction became matters for experts
while the role of the architect became more clearly focused on providing overall conception of structures,
and managing the relationship between the client and the builder/contractor (Lewis, 1998).
It is really easy to see the parallels in software and enterprise architecture. It wasn't that long ago that
an individual or very small group might conceive of and develop an operating system or an entire application. Increasing product complexity, project size, distributed teams, high levels of integration within and
even between different product lines, and product lines sharing a common code base, have changed the
processes and roles associated with software development. In particular, over the past few years the role of
architect has been created in many organizations to ensure the overall integrity and critical characteristics
of systems and development processes.
Although the history of the enterprise and software architecture discipline is short in comparison with
its analogous counterpart in the building domain, we have been able to establish several success factors for
the role of the software architect. In this paper, we concentrate on the competencies the architect must have
to be successful in the role