On Becoming a Software Architect: Round 2

In my previous post. I asked how many of you would be interested in hearing more tips/guidance for begining architects. Since I only got a few responses I would say the answer is "no"*. This means that apart from this post (and the previous one), I will not have posts that specifically targeting "newbie" architects (though I hope my other posts are relevant to you as well).

As a reminder, Ajay asked how do yo become an architect. Here is the reply I sent him:

I am not sure I can pin-point an exact route to becoming an architect. But maybe I can give you a few starting points. There are several pillars of what architect. There are some hard skills you can aquire: Technology depth and breadth, the ability to abstract and design.

On the soft-skills side (I blog on those here on Dr. Dobb's; see here is the first part) you can usually find courses for most of them (for example, I took courses on Strategic Planning, Negoiations and Conflict Resolution, Change Management (as in introducing change to an organization not source control), presentation skills, etc.). However, you need to practice to make the skills stick.

Another important factor is perspective--the more experience you get in various development roles the better architect you'd be. I think it is very helpful for an architect to see at least once project from inception to maintenance.

Some resources you can look at. Two good books are:

• Software Architecture In Practice, Second Edition by Clemens et al.
• Software Systems Architecture: Working With Stakeholders Using Viewpoints and Perspectives by Nick Rozanski and Eoin Woods.

Some of the leading sites:

• IASA- International association of Software Architects :
• Software Engineering Institute has an interesting architecture site (they also offer architect courses).
• Dana Bredemeyer's site has a lot of useful information (He also has architect courses.)

You might also find my architecture activities framework useful (I thought about creating a course but never got beyond syllabus outline and a couple of presentations).

A few other related sites:

• Enterprise Architect Journal
  
• U.S. Dept. of Defense Architecture Framework
  
• Dr. Dobb's Architcture channel (but you already know that).
  
• Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing - Architecture Framework Information
  
• Booch - Handbook of Software Architecture
  
• TOGAF- The Open Group Architectural Framework
  
• MDA- Model Driven Architecture
  
• Pattern Share
  
• The Zachman Institute
  
• Catalog of Enterprise Architecture patterns
  

Architecture Related Organizations :

• World Wide Institute of Software Architects
  
• Enterprise Architect Community /
  
• Global Enterprise Architecture Organization
  
• Enterprise Architect Interest Group
  
• Institute for Enterprise Architecture Developments
  
• IASA- International association of Software Architects (already mentioned above)
  

Hope this helps you get started.

Arnon

Posted by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz at 07:42 AM  Permalink