Architect Should Know What ?

Question

What are all the things an Architect Should Know ?

What will be the daily roles and responsiblities of an Architect ?

Consider a project in different stages eg: - Requirement Gathering, Analysis, Design, Coding, Testing, Maintenance.

What will be his contribution in each phase ?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Suthish asked what is the difference between an architect and project manager. I am wondering what is the difference between an architect and a systems analyst. People have a tendency to use new terms for old concepts so they can make something sound new. Based on my experience, a project manager is the one with the most seniority in a company, regardless of progamming experience. A project manager might not make the best descisons for the company; they are often (not always) promoted according to the Peter Principle , which says that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

Mukesh Kumar · Answer

Nice thread..

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts - Richard Monson-Haefel Its a very good book.

Suthish Nair · Answer

Yep.. its a good thread. Also waiting for the article from Mahesh. Mani, can you share the book name you referring.

Jiteendra Sampathirao · Answer

Hi, very nice thread.. thanks velayutham....

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

Being an architect, you must have a coding background, must know what latest and cutting-edge technologies are out there, must know how to hire, build, manage and run a team. You must know how to communicate with the business world (client, analysts, project manager) and then how to convert that to technical terms so your development team would understand. One important factor is, an architect must know the past and present and must be able to predict the future of that product. That means, he has done that kind of work in past, knows what is going on today, and must know, how to build this system so it's good for many years in future. The above point as Mahesh said is absolutely correct. Few more points which I read from a book is as follow. If you design it, you should be able to code it. An architect's responsibility never finishes after the architecture is created Change is a constant; architecture needs to be adaptable and the architect needs to be a change driver Chances are your biggest problem isn't technical

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Correct. If you go to a large corporation, a Project Manager is usually non-technical person who has a good business background and understand the business. PM usually sits/works with "the Architect" to understand the scope of project, time, money, and team size.

Suthish Nair · Answer

yes.. mixed model @my company had. kind of all rounders :).

Mahesh Chand · Answer

It actually depends on the project size, company size, project budget and team size. For a small company and small project, one person handles PM, Architect, and Teach Lead. For other company, there may be 3 different people handling different roles.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Project Manager usually gets the requirements, set deadlines, deliverables, communicate with the client (regularily) and then communicate with the team. Also work on budget, forecasts, team hiring etc. PM is usually not technical. PM is usually from business side. Architect is from technology side. So when meeting clients, sometimes there is a no need of an Architect if requirements are clearly defined and written. However, I have seen a mixed model where same Technical person is PM as well as an Architect.

Suthish Nair · Answer

Its got lil confused for me, then what is the difference in a Project Manager and Architect. As per your listing PM also do the same thing.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

This is interesting. I am writing an article on that (in my head). Seriously, I have thought about writing an article but did not get time yet. I will try to answer it here: An architect is like "the man" for a project/product. He does not need to read all detailed requirements to tell you how much time and effort it will take to build a product (roughly). In real world, this is how it works. Let's take a real world example. This happens almost every day with me. Doug Wagner, who meets potential clients everyday, meets this one lady, call her Joanne. Joanne has a website for parents to fill out their kids records such as school details, sick, holidays, plans etc. Not going into much details, this is a very large project. She is interested us (Adapt) to do it. At that time, when she is ready to meet, Doug calls me. We all three meets with her in a room with bunch of white boards. I listen to her and let her draw everything on board what she has in her mind. Now, as an architect, while she is talking, my mind is already running. Putting together a big picture. What kind of system we need to build. How many servers do we need? What kind of front end would work? What kind of backend database? Does she need Mobile apps? Or will a Website optimized for mobile work? So I am also asking her all these questions. Once she is done with my questions, I should have a rough idea about the time, the team, and cost it will take to build this entire system. Being an architect, you must have a coding background, must know what latest and cutting-edge technologies are out there, must know how to hire, build, manage and run a team. You must know how to communicate with the business world (client, analysts, project manager) and then how to convert that to technical terms so your development team would understand. One important factor is, an architect must know the past and present and must be able to predict the future of that product. That means, he has done that kind of work in past, knows what is going on today, and must know, how to build this system so it's good for many years in future. I plan to write a lot on this. When? Time will tell.

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

not a solution Architect. More specific like Technology Architect or Software Architect

Jaganathan Bantheswaran · Answer

Hi Wiki answers for you here