For the architect
As an architect there are so many options and opportunities available it is difficult to know where to start. Together, lets try and work it out….
Architecture offers a truly amazing career that has a massive depth and breadth of concern within an organisation yet has the power to transform everyone in it and everyone who interacts with it.
Depending on the organisation you currently (or have) worked for and the area of architecture you work in as well as your interaction with other architects in your organisation, you probably have a view on the kinds of activities that are undertaken and where in the organisation architecture sits.
The bad news is that unlike other careers such as accountancy or our namesakes in civil and building architecture, architecture within organisations has no central body that defines the various kinds of roles, knowledge and clear career paths that is common across organisations.
This is probably due to architecture being relatively young (that is decades not centuries old) as well as the breadth and depth of the subject matter across so many differing organisations, making it hard to create a common set of positions with well defined skills.
The good news however is that the industry has creates its own set of titles from which we can start to work out what the role may entail although the terms are overloaded and without several paragraphs describing the position, one title can be used for two positions that mean completely different things – but it is a start! More on that later…..
Size matters
As an organisation grows to a particular size, the roles and activities of architecture grow more important to a point where dedicated architects begin to be required. Up until that point, the roles can be played by other people who often cover multiple roles. Although there is no set point, i have found that as the organisation reaches a point where it may call itself and enterprise then architects start to offer significant value.
As a rough guide, I have often found this to be when an organisation has several hundred staff, Until that point they may employ engineers who fulfil some of the role of architect along with the managing director and others. There is however no right or wrong time in the life of an organisation to employ someone who can focus on the organisational, business and technology architecture. Sometimes smaller organisations see benefit in employing a dedicated architect and in some cases larger organisations have none, but as the scale and complexity grows, architecture becomes more and more important.
