Digital Architect

What is an Architect or Digital Architect?

What is the added value of an Architect or Digital Architect in the organization? This page sheds light on the Job Profile Standard for an Architect.

Digital Architect Definition

The Dragon1 open EA Method defines a Digital Architect as: 'The designer of total concepts for structures and the supervisor of the realization of that structure with that total concept applied'.

So the focus of a digital architect in Dragon1 is to design an architecture, where architecture equals a specific total concept, namely a concept consisting of constructive, operative, and decorative concepts.

Jobs and Careers

More and more organizations offer a job with the title Architect. The level at which these architects act varies though. Digital Architects often start with a career as analysts or designers, and via some advisory or consultancy experience, they become architects.

In practice, we see architects normally have a minimum of 7 years of work experience in two other jobs, 3.5 years per job before they become junior architects. Senior architects or lead architects often have more than 20 years of working experience.

From the perspective of Dragon1 a digital architect at best works at a strategic level for an owner/client of a structure, designing total concepts for fundamental strategic changes in that structure.

Tasks

The tasks of a Digital Architect as a designer of total concepts normally are the following:

1. Inspire stakeholders
2. Get a design assignment
3. Interview stakeholders to get requirements
4. Design a total concept (= architecture)
5. Make detailed designs
6. Communicate the total concept design to all stakeholders intensively for support
7. Supervise the realization of a structure using the total concept design

Digital Architects make use of tools to create architecture products or deliverables. The most used tools are still: Pen, Paper, MS PowerPoint, MS Visio, and MS Excel.

With tools a digital architect can create his building blocks, and fragments and make more reuse of the parts of the architecture.

Deliverables

Core architecture products or deliverables a digital architect creates compliant with the Dragon1 open EA Method are:

1. Architecture Repository
2. Architecture Dossier
3. Architecture Description document
4. Glossary of terms
5. Architecture Principles
6. Architecture Models
7. Architecture Visualizations like:
   1. Landscapes
   2. Blueprints
   3. Roadmaps
   4. Situation Sketches
   5. Sketch Total Concept Design
   6. Stakeholder Onion Diagram
   7. Different Viewpoints from the same Architecture Models

This list is not limited but gives a good impression of what architects with Dragon1 open EA Method normally create for their owner/clients.

Competencies and Training

Depending on the level of experience a digital architect has, his knowledge, skills, and competencies will vary. You can check the Dragon1 Job Profile for the official list of competencies. The competencies we will list here are the Dragon1 core architect competencies, distinguishing architects from non-architects.

The Dragon1 Architect knowledge, skills and competencies are:

1. Ability to create architectural designs that satisfy functional constructive, operative, decorative, and technical requirements.
2. Adequate knowledge of the history and theories of architecture and the related technologies and sciences.
3. Knowledge of the other sciences as an influence on the quality of digital architecture design.
4. Adequate knowledge of structure, module, system and project design, planning, and the skills involved in the planning process.
5. Understanding of the relationship between people and organization, and between the organization and their environment, and of the need to relate organizations and the distance between them to human needs and requirements.

Dragon1 Academy offers training and certification in Dragon1 as Enterprise Architecture Tool and also in the EA Method (Dragon1 Foundation and Dragon1 Certified).

We believe that certification after training works both ways. As a professional, you need to take that extra step during training to pass the exam. This will make you master the training theory much better. Also with a certification, you can communicate your competencies and capabilities to others. Therefore you cannot only certify yourself as an architect in the Dragon1 Method but also as a user in Dragon1 as an EA Tool.