Assignment 3
Kendall Nelson

1) What does the position of enterprise architect entail? What qualifications or experiences would you think a good enterprise architect should have? Support your answer with examples from the case.

As the case stated, enterprise architects need to be able to create unity. They must be able to have a broad look on situations, as well as be able to take a close up view and individual issues. A good skill to have is to be able to step back and take a look at what problems the proposed project will solve. I think that these are all qualifications that a good enterprise architect should have. The ability to focus on the big picture seems to be one that is highly stressed in the case, that way when you are designing you can focus on what the overall outcome will be and what kind of problems it will solve.

2) Consider the different companies mentioned in the case and their experiences with enterprise architecture. Does this approach seem to work better in certain types of companies or industries than in others? Why or why not?

Sony was mentioned in the case as putting together a group of enterprise architects in order to save on costs. They had to start out small and then work their way up in the enterprise architect world. They didn’t have business support to begin with so they had to take small risks and help plan for the future until they had built up business support. This seemed to work for Sony as they had to focus on the luxuries because that is what movies are to consumers. It seems that most examples in the case mention that you have to start out small when dealing with enterprise architects. There was also a part that Sony mentioned that being creative is important and I agree with this completely because there are a bunch of different approaches to the different problems they encounter and this is where focusing on the big picture really comes into play. 3) What is the value derived from companies with mature enterprise architectures? Can you see any disadvantages? Discuss. Companies with mature enterprise architects can greatly benefit from many values. Having good enterprise architects means you also have the four c’s that the case says that enterprise architecture deals with, these being: connection, collaboration, communication, and customers. These are four words that are essential for successful companies, and it is an enterprise architects main goal to focus on all of these so if you have mature enterprise architects you get the best of the four c’s. I can’t really think of any disadvantages to having enterprise architects who are good at what they do.