Tag Archives: skills

Training By eturnti on Aug 10 -11 2013….

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More people in the line wanting to become architects/managers , join an architectural practice, better your existing knowledge levels and people wanting to climb the architectural ladder in your organisation can augment your skills can benefit from this training. 

What is EA is it a body of knowledge , bunch of frameworks, tools , practices , methodology , best practices ? Know what it is to know what goes behind EA practices and how they are applied to situations and derive value and showcase improvement in the organisation.

Past sessions had the following mix of people attending this training developers,leads, managers,architects, business analysts , consultants working on IT projects, directors and people who are , going to be part of enterprise projects and wanted to know more on how they are managed and executed.

Following are  some of the aspirations of the candidates who attended this training in the past.

1. How are EA projects managed ?

2. How are EA metrics captured , benefits measured and calculated ?

3. What are the EA frameworks and how are they used and applied in principle ?

4. How is this applicable for product development ?

5. Justify the usefulness of EA and measure overall effectiveness of an EA program.

6. Apply these principles to IT and infrastructure projects.

7. Want to lead a team of EA architects and manage an EA project .

8. Usefulness of Togaf and Zachmann and how to apply them to real life projects and derive value. Understand these frameworks and their relevance in setting up an architectural practice.

9. Convince management on architectural best practice and able to contribute to architectural decision making in the organisation.

10. How can we keep EA technology/platform agnostic ?

11. EA and agility where do they mix and match ? Is it really feasible ?

12. How to keep EA projects in iterations well managed and accountable ?

13. Want to know what this buzz EA is all about and what does it mean as I am currently doing architecture work.

Become good at what you are doing, impress your managers,coworkers by attending this course and finally add value to yourself.

Drop a mail at asketurnti[at]eturnti[dot]com to book yourself or click here.

 

 

Want to be an Architect , can’t see ahead , what to do ?

RB-JumpingHurdle

This a question that pops up in the minds of most people who take the technical route instead of the managerial route or business route after having spent some years of significance in IT. This reminds one of the snake and ladders game where you are playing your cards/dice well but are eaten up due to the monster snake on the path( existing commitments to projects or routine organisational activities). In other words you are simply not able to get time to do the things that you wanted or enrich your skills to the climb the ladder and be an architect. Always bogged down by existing tasks and they do not seem to break free instead keep adding up letting you loose grip of things. Most often we have people saying I need to get into that role because it is more challenging as opposed to what I am doing current. Grass on the other side looks green and shiny each job has its own issues and challenges. The way to work towards a career in architecture would be join linkedin groups focused towards architecture. These days there are many right from data architecture,cloud architecture,enterprise architecture,software architecture,security architecture and so on. Just as you would have made a choice of on your electives in your college stick to one and then pursue it. Drop by blogs , research papers, developers networks, communities, forums and join people who breath the same air.

There are tons of free videos on youtube on this topic and more goggling will get you better focus on what suits you and your existing skill sets. Most often get asked the question in some workshops ,by participants that “I want to be an Architect but my current job has not enough provision to extend my capabilities. Here is some quick things that you could do on that front.

Create your destiny :

Hack1 : Volunteer for activities outside of your work that get recognized as architectural in nature. Fixing analyzing issues, adding a new skill to your tech skill , participating in code reviews, design reviews and demonstrating that you just not know your pieces well but do understand the whole pieces and how they stick together.

Hack2 : Participate in showcasing your skills such as presenting or giving a tech talk at an event internal or external. Get people to listen to you using such forums.

Hack3 : Follow them on twitter , linkedin stalk them 🙂 . Read what they have to say and how they evolved from developers to their current state. Many will have a of them have funny sides and you can find yourself in those positions as well.

Hack4 : Attend boot camps, developer summits workshops which give you an outside the arena view of things in your topic of interest. Gradually incrementally add little by little to that body of knowledge.

Hack5: Think you have already become one and act like one. Fake it till you make it. You may not have genuine goodness in you but they say initially fake it till it becomes a part of your being.

To be good at something you need to follow the famous principle along with the above hacks “To master something, you need to spend 10,000 hours doing it.” Ask yourself have you put in that effort or are you expecting things too early.

It is a different story that also goes around ” I am architect but do not know what do to”. That is the topic of a separate discussion.

 

Enterprise Architect is a Business Man / Trader of wares

EA-businessman

Enterprise Architect is a business man meaning should understand the cost implications involved in running software enterprises end to end. He should be able to wear a BA’s hat when required translating requirements and clearing road blocks which are found at the business/IT intersections. He should be well versed with all forms of business analysis and be able to separate the grain from the husk. So an EA can be someone who progressed from a BA to an EA or became an EA via other routes. At the core of an EA’s skill set is someone who knows the business of running an application / product or an Enterprise using IT.  If you look at how EA has evolved over the years from being a core technical person to someone who bridges the gap between business and IT. 

Most EA are accountable for couple of million in the Project/Product’s outcome. So although good techies can take a product/project to a level it needs business focus to be able to focus on the results of the business outcomes. You can develop a great product using technology but the point of inflection where it meets end user needs and the market can be well understood if the business needs are well understood.

An interesting technology creation is twitter which enabled to let people talk publicly about their cats and dogs. Initially it was thought to be an useless creation having no immediate business value but it has as its core of connecting people at a scale unimaginable in history. The 140 chars is the new low and high as well.

EA should know the business side well …among other things