In summary, the survey results show that a business analyst is the top role, which is confused with a business architect (by a large margin). This is followed by a solution architect, a product manager/other product role, and a business relationship manager.
While these results are probably not surprising to many, we at least have some data here to substantiate what we may see and feel – and we can know that, as individuals, we are not alone in our observations. As a global discipline, local communities, and individuals within our organizations, we can act on these findings in many ways. We can continue seeking ways to clarify and delineate the business architect role. Additionally, we can emphasize the power of partnership across all of the roles for designing organizations, enabling strategy to execution, and making holistic business decisions.
Here are selected thoughtful comments from respondents:
- “Business architecture is a core skill set we have, but we do not use the skill set as a job title. We have job role titles that indicate the outcome we deliver such as Transformation Plan, not the way we do it.”
- “The maturity of the discipline with the organization may initially require a business architect to wear multiple hats. This can add to the confusion and make it more difficult to demonstrate value which is separate from execution.”
- “It seems like a lack of adoption to business architecture vocabulary leads to the position of being viewed and used more as a super/principal analyst rather than leaders understanding the value that can be delivered by leveraging the business architecture knowledgebase.”“We understand the role as an elevated, seasoned and business savvy enterprise architect.”
- “I think the biggest confusion is that business architecture is an IT role with focus on applications, routines and low-level processes. I think business architecture is so much more and addressing strategic alignment, value management, and operating models.”
- “I don’t think they necessarily confuse the business architect roles with other roles, they just overload it with more responsibilities that could be done by others if they were available. I am an org designer, service designer, analyst, strategy manager and enterprise architect as well as my core role of a business architect but this is because those roles don’t exist or aren’t available at the time needed and I believe the business architect is more of a Swiss army knife role more like an internal consultant skilled at a variety of different disciplines and able to tie them back to the WHOLE strategy to execution path.”
- “In our organization, business architect is no longer distinctly identified though we were hired as business architects as per the contract. As per McKinsey's recommendation of Agile set up, all architects are technical or solution architects and there is no place for business architect role.”
- “Generally it’s differentiated but no one has clarity about what business architecture does.”
