Academy Research

Whilst doing some research to further develop the Architecture Academy that I'm working on, I came across these resources.

TOGAF

TOGAF has a number of good resources. They start by defining what they mean by an Architect:

The architect has a responsibility for ensuring the completeness (fitness-for-purpose) of the architecture, in terms of adequately addressing all the pertinent concerns of its stakeholders; and the integrity of the architecture, in terms of connecting all the various views to each other, satisfactorily reconciling the conflicting concerns of different stakeholders, and showing the trade-offs made in so doing (as between security and performance, for example).

The role of the IT architect is more like that of a city planner than that of a building architect, and the product of the IT architect is more aptly characterized as a planned community (as opposed to an unconstrained urban sprawl), rather than as a well-designed building or set of buildings.

They then offer examples of various roles that an Architect may assume during a project (e.g. Sponsor, Manager, etc). Against this, they provide a number of skills that an Architect might have (e.g. Generic skills, Technical skills, Business skills, etc)

SFIA

SFIA (Skills for the Information Age) - http://www.sfia.org.uk provides some additional resources. Though not specific to Architecture, it seems to provide some relevant insight into appropriate skills that IT professionals .

Microsoft

Microsoft's Certified Architecture programme also offers some useful resources. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/architect/archcompetencies/default.mspx

Their skills framework is offered in the guise of Architect Competencies, which span from leadership, through strategy, to technology skills.

Their definition of an IT Architect is logical, but highlights TOGAF's view that the role is poorly defined across the industry.