Is there a Minimum Age for Enterprise Architect

This is apparently a discussion that comes up on a repeated basis on LinkedIn, and was asked again recently.  Fortunately, Jeffrey Smith (Chief Architect, Lockheed Martin) was kind enough to post a summary of the last time this discussion came up, and I’d like to share his words with you.  Excellent insight from the EA community on “the value of experience” in Enterprise Architecture.

“While it is hard to determine when a consensus is reached on a forum like this, we did come to some general agreement. I will try and summarize what came out of that discussion as best I can from memory.

1. We all agreed that it is experience, not age that is the determining factor. With that in mind, however, there is going to be a minimum age in order to gain the experience. Most agreed that someone under 30 marketing themselves as an EA either did not understand what EA entailed, or was being unrealistic. To be effective as an EA, the person must have a combination of business and technical experience that would be virtually impossible to attain at a younger age.
    
2. We discussed the types and levels of experience that were required. Obviously an effective EA needs to have both technical and business experience to be effective. The amount in each category will vary depending on the person and the industry they are working in. Someone that wants to be an EA in an industry that relies heavily on technology would need more experience in the technology area than someone looking to work as an EA in a less technology intensive industry.
     
   It was also discussed that the both the technology and business experience ideally should be from working at a number of different companies. This was viewed as important to provide a more well rounded view than what would be seen in working for a single or very small number of companies. Every company has it's own approaches to both business and technology and understanding the different approaches allows an EA to better work in whatever culture they find themselves in.
     
   Experience in only on business approach or technology approach is just a limiting as having experience in only one technology area. The experience also needs to include working at management levels in order to get the big picture understanding needed.
    
3. There was a discussion about various certifications and there value in determining the competence of an EA. While certifications can provide a good foundation for someone going into the field, certifications are no substitute for experience. By the same token, someone with 25+ years experience should not be viewed as unqualified simply because they do not have a piece of paper. For someone with 25+ years in architecture, going to get certifications is not likely to add much in terms of their skill as an EA.

There has been a lot of debate about what makes a good EA, and I think this debate will continue for some time to come. The main part of the debate seems to revolve around whether it is better for EAs to come from a technology background or a business background. There are plusses and minuses to each. One thing that is needed in the EA field is the establishment of mentorship programs to help train the next generation of EAs. Successfully establishing industry recognized mentorship programs would go a long way towards advancing EA as a profession.”

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 25, 2010
  Some very nice points in here, thank you. We with the grey hair definitely think you have to have some to be an EA! But all kidding aside, I think we have to come down firmly on the side that experience counts. But experience of what? That gets to the fundamental question of what we do. I see EAs (at least by title) who are alll about the operational stability. I see others (by title) who are all about the applications portfolio. I see some others who are all about the "business" - whatever that means. For me the EA is in the business - that doesn't mean the EA reports to someone in "the business', it means that the EA must have the business chops to be allowed a seat at the enterprise table. EAs must be about dealing with unanticipated change. Sounds like a contradiction in terms, because by definition the actual changes will inevitable be unanticipated. Hower the kinds of change, rate of change and shearing forces can give architects insight into the kinds of flexibility/tradeoffs required. Simple rules like "things that are likely to change rapidly and often shouldn't be embedded in things that change infrequently and slowly". It's kind of obvious, but actually requires considerable insight. Other rules like, "you need to minimize side effects of one 'system' from another". The best example here comes to me from restaurants and sewage systems. Where I live, sinks in restaurant kitchens are not allowed to be connected directly to the sewage system. There is an air gap. So if the sewage system backs up the efluent doesn't get into the sink where food/dishes are. Not a pretty image, but a really good point. In the event of a major storm - when the sewage system is overloaded there is safety. Note that system has nothing to do with technology - it is really an illustration of a core architectural pattern As a final note, I am not sure that it is mentorship exactly that we need for the future architects. Apprenticeship, perhaps. But mentoring is somehow different.

• Anonymous
  March 02, 2010
  Well, interesting reading for me as in my very freshly 29th year of age I am actually in official EA role for five years already:) (And not solution type EA, not technical architect like EA, let alone infrastructure architect EA) So where did I get the experience to actually become (as I believe) a good one? Of course on the job, in previous consulting,at university (PhD). But I do strongly believe, that it is much more about attitude, focus, interest and the right level of interest (and talent, perhaps?).I have developed in the past years as well, from certainly more techie guy (when it was just enough to have smart ideas how to make a piece of software live longer, be cheaper, more modular...) to be much more interested in how to actually make those ideas happen in a complex environment, when does it make sense to do it and if the company is actually interested in it. I became much more interested in the nature of the company, in its operating model, in people, culture (pretty important), social background, varying interests of stakeholders and how to cope with those... and - well - understand politics as well, of course. On the business side, even if I basically stick only to banking (and previously to Telco), it is not that much difficult to actually see how the business works elsewhere and how the EA function works elsewhere, where its positioned and who are the actuall "customers" (I have also quite a good understanding of different modes of operation and business in number of diversly big CEE banks). And I do dislike to be actually judget by my age (especially when the first piece of software which I sold was when I was 14 - and no, it wasn't HTML web page:) P.S. Certification does not make much difference. I do have a COBIT foundation certificate and I do not find myself to be a pro because of that. I do not have any certificate on any EA framework, but I do believe that despite that I could be pretty helpful lad to help a company with that.

• Anonymous
  March 03, 2010
  @Ondrej Valuable input.  Thanks for sharing.

• Anonymous
  March 03, 2010
  EA experience is not a question of age, but a question of whether one actually has had insight into all disciplines of EA You have to understand technology You have to understand the concept of business and enterprise management You have to understand information architecture You have to understand application architecture and many more Can you have all of this when you are 22? Probably not Can you have missed some of those when you are 45? Absolutely!

• Anonymous
  March 17, 2010
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• Anonymous
  March 17, 2010
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• Anonymous
  March 18, 2010
  Yikes! Minimum age for an EA? I bet you like to poke sticks into hornet nests. Next I bet you will ask if an architect needs to code? Just kidding. Thanks for furthering the discussion on this topic.

• Anonymous
  March 27, 2010
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• Anonymous
  April 07, 2010
  The comment has been removed