The solution architecture conundrum

I have had countless conversations with architecture leaders who have struggled to find good permanent Solution Architect’s (SA’s). The overwhelming reason has been that most SA’s want to go contracting. I am not here to discuss the reasons (as I did that in my last post - ), what I am interested in are the strategies that some of these leaders are taking. I thought it worthwhile sharing to inform those who are hiring architects in a candidate-short market.

Here are the four strategies that seem to be most prevalent:

• Contract SA’s

• Vendor led SA’s

• Junior Architects

• Merge Enterprise Architect (EA) / SA

Contract SA’s

A pretty stock standard approach which seems to be more driven out of practicality and understanding of the market rather than preference, is to contract an SA. Most work that SA’s get involved with is transformational and can be aligned to a particular programme of work. This allows certain architecture leaders to put this into their Capex budget, which in turn means contractors can be engaged. The perceived downside of hiring contractors is that the organisation doesn’t get to retain the knowledge when they leave. That is true, but the same could be said for a permanent architect. The main challenge that I have identified based on conversations is that organisations don’t necessarily have a full-time engagement, therefore they are left trying to find work to keep this architect busy.

Vendor-led SA Practice

Until about 6 months ago this was completely new to me, I wouldn’t have thought that anyone would risk having their vendors own their SA practice. The organisations I have spoken to who are doing this all have one thing in common, all their technology is Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS). By not having anything bespoke they can rely on their vendors to do what they need to. They have a very close relationship with the vendors and have them operate as part of the Architecture Review Board (ARB) to ensure they aren’t running off in the wrong direction. This is a high trust model and involves their EA’s having to do more vendor management than they would ideally want to do, which can cause issues.

Junior Architects

This is something that organisations are starting to come around to. The decision to take this pathway is normally due to either a lack of funding to bring on contractors, or a very stable architecture practice with a leader who is happy to invest their time and effort into building up architects. I personally really enjoy seeing this approach as it means the architecture community is growing. The struggle most face is identifying what capabilities make a good architect and what sort of training they can provide (No not just bloody TOGAF).

Merge EA/SA

I somewhat covered this in my last post, but the growing role of a principal architect, which in this context is seen as a conduit SA and EA. The idea being that you offer SA’s the ability to step up into an EA role, but they also get the ability to stay close to the delivery by keeping a foot in the SA camp. This allows organisations to offer more money than what they could if it were a traditional SA role. From what I have seen, this approach has the least success, it works for those who want to take the step into EA, but not everyone wants to do that, so you start limiting your market.

I’d be interested to hear of any other approaches that I can add to the list, I am sure there are others out there who are experiencing challenges within their architecture practice.