Enterprise Architect

An Enterprise Architect can be compared to a school Principal — both are generally tasked with overseeing things in the workplace. But while the Principal takes care of such things as student performance, teacher responsibilities, budgets, and school maintenance, your milieu as an Enterprise Architect doesn’t involve lunchroom tables and standardized tests. Rather, you’re concerned with an enterprise’s labor force, computer systems, structure, software usage, and missions. Your job as an Enterprise Architect is to evaluate each of these parts, and produce reports that communicate your findings to management, stockholders, or owners.

The term enterprise is used to describe a variety of entities that use this process. Generally, your employer is a large corporation or governmental division. You can work with the business as a whole, with one division of the company, or with a conglomerate of companies. Wherever you hang your hat though, your responsibilities are the same. You gather information about each component of the enterprise. How many people are employed and how are their positions structured? What jobs do they perform and what equipment and software do they use? How does data flow within the company? This type of in-depth analysis contributes to a global view of the business. From your graphs, charts, documents, and models (collectively called artifacts), stakeholders can see strengths and weaknesses.

Once you’ve broken down the parts, evaluated them, and put them back together in an easy-to-understand report, you can help identify ways to reach company goals, improve output, realign production, implement more efficient software, or develop new supply lines.