Building a solution architecture team when permanent architects aren't an option

I have had countless conversations with architecture leaders who have struggled to find good permanent Solution Architect’s (SA’s). The overwhelming reason has been that most SA’s want to go contracting. I am not here to discuss the reasons (as I did that in my last post), what I am interested in are the strategies that some of these leaders are taking to engage SA's. I thought it worthwhile sharing these to inform those who are hiring architects in a candidate-short market.

Here are the four strategies that seem to be most prevalent:

·        Contract SA’s

·        Vendor-led SA’s

·        Consultancy-led SA's

·        Junior Architects

·        Merge EA / SA

Contract SA’s

This almost feels like adding kerosene to the fire. This often seems to be more driven out of practicality and understanding of the market rather than preference, is to contract an SA. Most work that SA’s get involved with is transformational and can be aligned to a particular programme of work. This allows certain architecture leaders to put this into their Capex budget, which in turn means contractors can be engaged. The perceived downside of hiring contractors is that the organisation doesn’t get to retain the knowledge when they leave. That is true, but the same could be said about any employee in any role. The main challenge that I have identified based on conversations is that organisations don’t necessarily have a full-time engagement, therefore they are left trying to find work to keep this architect busy.

Vendor-led SA Practice

Until about 6 months ago this was completely new to me; I wouldn’t have thought that anyone would risk having their vendors run their SA practice. The organisations I have spoken to who are doing this all have one thing in common, all their technology is Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS). By not having anything bespoke, they rely on their vendors, to do what they need to. They have a very close relationship with the vendors and have them operate as part of the Architecture Review Board (ARB) to ensure they aren’t running off in the wrong direction. This is a high trust model and involves the internal EA’s having to do more vendor management than they would ideally want to do, which can cause issues.

Consultancy-led SA's

This is a relatively common practice, it works well for organisations who are smaller in nature and want to be able to scale their capability. Having worked for a consultancy that did just this, It worked increadibly well and I can really see the benefit in utilising this strategy. This allows you to tap into the collective knowledge of an organisation (if its done right), rather than relying on contract architects who each have their own approach. The problem can arise though when the consultancy starts bodyshopping those resources, they then become a very expensive recruiter, which is something that some of the larger consultancies have started doing. I think this strategy works, until you get your practice to a certain size, by which point you should want to own that yourself.

Junior Architects

This is something that organisations are starting to come around to. The decision to take this pathway is normally due to either; a lack of funding to bring on contractors; or a very stable architecture practice with a leader who is happy to invest their time and effort into building up architects. I personally really enjoy seeing this approach as it means the architecture community is growing. The struggle most face is identifying what capabilities make a good architect and what sort of training they can provide (no not just bloody TOGAF).

Merge EA/SA

I somewhat covered this in my last post, but the growing role of a principal architect, which in this context is seen as a conduit SA and EA. The idea being that you offer SA’s the ability to step up into an EA role, but they also get the ability to stay close to the delivery by keeping a foot in the SA camp. This allows organisations to offer more money than what they could if it were a traditional SA role. From what I have seen, this approach has the least success, it works for those who want to take the step into EA, but not everyone wants to do that, so you start limiting your market.

The strategies highlighted above are dependent on the organisation, its structure and maturity of the architecture practice. There are no right or wrong ways to engage SA's, but knowing other methods of doing so can be beneficial. If you want to know more or want to talk to those who have implemented the above strategies reach out and I can connect you