What is the role of enterprise architect in cloud, airplane pilot or a taxi driver?

Enterprises are strategically adopting cloud, and the adoption is aligned to BiModal IT principles for obvious reasons. There is large part of the enterprises which run in the traditional way, but there is innovations happening in the edges which needs to adopt start-up culture. These innovations can also potentially change the way in the enterprise evolves in the future.

 What should the enterprise architects do, to ensure that enterprises manage their past efficiently at the same time, take on the newer challenges & enable the future growth.

 Role Definition (illustrative set)

1. Layout the technical capabilities required to realize the enterprise application portfolio, and finalize the technology roadmap considering functional, non-functional requirements and cost considerations.
2. Envision the infrastructure & deployment architecture.
3. Establish the application & infrastructure management tools with objective of providing business service assurance
4. Define the security solution for infrastructure, application and data ensuring compliance with all stated security needs
5. Establish application development and delivery lifecycle with right set of processes and tools to help deliver applications in an optimal way.
6. Carry out technical governance to ensure adherence to enterprise standards.

 How was it done in the past?

1. Technology refresh cycle was done once in 3-5 years following enterprise architecture frameworks like #TOGAF.
2. The enterprise was not fully involved in the functional aspects, and it was handled by portfolio architects.
3. Played the role of technical governance and enforcing standards with varying degrees of success, played lesser roles in guidance due to lack of sufficient funding for the enterprise architecture teams.

 So they acted pretty much like an airplane pilot, who would lead the passengers (Portfolios) from a defined starting point to defined target, as per predefined path and the journey time is fixed as well. Only levers that the portfolios (passengers) had, was to choose between economy, premium economy, business or first class. In some worst case scenarios, some portfolios took different flight or drove by car themselves.

 What is happening in the cloud world?

1. Technologies are rapidly evolving and innovation by the start-ups are disrupting the business and the business needs to respond rapidly with apt solution. They cannot wait for enterprise standards to evolve and in some industry segments like retail, services, etc., the need for change is very high and the time is limited.
2. Portfolio architects are taking up the task of technology induction in their respective areas, and even sometimes the business users are directly investing in the solutions with external providers, SaaS or niche technology solution providers.
3. Whereas, enterprise architects are still building a big reference architecture (like they do in the past) with cloud & cloud native technologies and but the adoption is poor in the portfolios.

 Enterprise Architects as Taxi Driver, but ensure no gridlock

1. Passengers (Portfolios) want to board at any point and alight at any point, look at adopting technologies based on immediate needs. The business changes are being made in incremental fashion, so the entire journey path cannot be defined upfront.
2. Enterprise architects should work pretty much like a taxi driver, get connected with the passengers, know the business application needs (unlike an airplane pilot who does not know the passenger), take then through each step in the journey and you may handle multiple portfolios in a defined period (like different passenger trips for a taxi driver in a day)
3. But as enterprise architect, your responsibility is more than that. Work as a city traffic planning authority as well to ensure that the traffic flow is smooth through the city (all individual initiative by business are handled properly), with minimal accidents (a.k.a failed projects, compared to airline, you are bound to have more accidents are the road)

 So enterprise architects need to roll up their sleeves, get on the ground, understand the business processes and guide the portfolios with technology induction in agile fashion.