Readings and Questions on Software Architecture and Software Architect

Should software architecture be owned and how to measure the output? What are responsiblities and liabilities of software architect?

I really like some articles from Skyscrapr because it provides in my opinion a good amount of quality, proper and down-to-earth (humble and not too much space walking) education material to what software architecture (responsibility and output) should be and what an architect (owner) should be concerned with.

In any sizeable and sustainabale human endeavour, it is impossible to imagine a teamforce without proper, formalized roles and responsibilities and also ownership of output. Yet, that could happen and happened for software. Software architecture is a grey area in many enterprise projects, software architect is a grey role that is so ambigously defined that whether he should code or not may become debate of years without clear answers.

In the article, What is an Architect brings the question upfront to the table and proposes the common terms the industry should agree upon: Solutions Architect, Infrastructure Architect, Enterprsie Architect. That is great clarifications - the reminding of roles and responsibilties would ensure the consistency and measurable of output!

The question is part of the original blog article from Software Architecture: Past, Present and Future which outlines the evolving of need of software architecture and software architect.

There are some other good articles, such as Mentoring: A Natural Element of Architectural Leadership. We also have Are We Engineers or Craftspeople? 

I always consider raising the right question is much more important than finding the correct answer. I would also applaude the sections of "Critical-Thinking Questions" in some of the articles (eg, Are We Engineers or Craftspeople?, The Role of Architecture in Business Analysis): they are so refreshing! The huge amount of articles and resources avaiable today, and avaiablility of google wikipedia at finger tips frequently mislead our mind into vicious cycles of instance-noodle trap - articles are read and forgotten, such sections reminded the need of asking the right questions and thinking out (not reading out or google out) answers. Great! I will re-read starred articles another 2-weeks then 4-weeks to ensure I still retain what I am enlightened with.

In the end, all the above cannot escape the center piece "communication and communication": architecture is a design output to communicate after all, to influence the decision, to justify the argument, to navigate through all the different waters. When we convinced others, we built the skyscrapr!