Role: Solution Architect
This role leads the development of the solution's architecture, which includes making and promoting the key technical decisions that constrain the overall design and implementation of the solution.
Role Sets: Software Capability Improvement
Relationships
Main Description

This role has overall responsibility for driving major or "solution level" decisions, expressed as the solution architecture. This typically includes identifying and documenting the architecturally significant aspects of the solution, including those in requirements, design, implementation, and deployment. The "solution significant aspects" include people and organization, as well as technical aspects like tools and infrastructure (software and hardware). This role is also responsible for providing the rationale for these decisions, balancing the concerns of the various stakeholders, driving down implementation risks, and ensuring that decisions are effectively communicated, validated, and followed.

For example, in establishing a discipline of performance measurement for an organization, this role would be responsible for all architectural aspects related to measurement, including establishing measurement needs, directing the effort to develop those measures, guiding the development of practices to appropriately leverage them, and ensuring that business value is achieved.

Staffing
Skills

This role must have this combination of skills:

  • Very good understanding of the business and operational aspects of the organization
  • Experience in the software development domain with an emphasis on the process aspects and metrics
  • Ability to effectively communicate with others at both business and technical levels
  • Thorough knowledge of the constraints imposed by the environment: technical, business, legal, standards, and so forth.
  • Good understanding of the tools that will be part of the solution