Why Enterprise Architects Can Understand Alien Technologies
posted by Anna Mar, October 10, 2011Have you ever seen a Star Trek episode in which the crew of the Enterprise are able to understand an alien technology?
Enterprise Architects are like that.
EAs can architect without understanding the low level details of technologies. EAs can review projects (and even do deep dives) into projects that use technologies that are completely foreign to us.
Proprietary, Specific Knowledge
Proprietary / Specific knowledge helps you to complete specific tasks.It doesn't help you to become a generalist who can understand any technology. It can even hurt. As you learn proprietary ways of doing things — there's a danger that your mind will start to assume that's the only way.
Proprietary, Specific Trends
When you ask (most) people what the latest technology trends are they will immediately start listing proprietary products: iPhones, iPads, Amazon EC2, VMWare etc ...Ask a enterprise architect and they are more likely to name general trends: mobile devices, ubiquitous computing, cloud computing, virtualization etc ...
It's not because enterprise architects are eggheads who like using big words. It's just that general terms are more useful when you need to understand a great variety of technologies on a regular basis.
General Knowledge as a Career Choice
Let's say you choose to become a SAP ERP configuration specialist. You'll likely have a successful career — as long as SAP remains a popular ERP. However, if SAP goes belly up — you may find it difficult to adapt.The problem is that SAP configuration is almost completely proprietary knowledge. It's not going to help you to configure a Oracle ERP for example. If you configure SAP ERPs for 30 years — you're may find it difficult to do anything else.
General Knowledge, on the other hand, allows you change roles with ease. It's also the path of choice for executive level positions.
|
What is security trying to achieve? |
|
Explaining complex business and technical concepts in layman's terms. |
|
Current state blueprints capture business, data and implementation architecture at the conceptual, logical and physical levels. |
Recently on Simplicable
| 101 Principles of Enterprise Architectureposted by Anna MarThis is the way to prove to your stakeholders that your recommendations are not just whims. |
|
| The Big List of Information Security Vulnerabilitiesposted by John SpaceyUnderstanding your vulnerabilities is the first step to managing risk. |
| The Big List of Information Security Threatsposted by John SpaceyUnderstand the threats to your organization. |
