Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Enterprise Architecture, Whiteboards and Bad Project Management
I recently noticed a trend of how architects perform their jobs that I haven't heard discussed anywhere else...
For those who entered the IT profession in the 80's and 90's, you would remember the days where we would cover the walls with ER diagrams and UML. Those where the days where architects worked on architecture. When was the last time you were in a large enterprise and saw models on whiteboards?
I bet if you were to walk your own hallways, you may notice that the whiteboards of architects are now covered with timelines and other notations not traditionally associated with architecture but strongly correlated to project management. Is it that architects are no longer doing architecture but project management?
If architects are really technical project managers then what are all the non-technical project managers up to? If architects are doing multiple roles, then why can't we rationalize away having two different forms of project managers. If you are wondering why IT is so expensive, maybe you should look at this relationship...
| | View blog reactionsFor those who entered the IT profession in the 80's and 90's, you would remember the days where we would cover the walls with ER diagrams and UML. Those where the days where architects worked on architecture. When was the last time you were in a large enterprise and saw models on whiteboards?
I bet if you were to walk your own hallways, you may notice that the whiteboards of architects are now covered with timelines and other notations not traditionally associated with architecture but strongly correlated to project management. Is it that architects are no longer doing architecture but project management?
If architects are really technical project managers then what are all the non-technical project managers up to? If architects are doing multiple roles, then why can't we rationalize away having two different forms of project managers. If you are wondering why IT is so expensive, maybe you should look at this relationship...
