Agree with everything he says. Except for the part that I don't. A software architect creates a vocabulary to enable efficient communication across an entire c

Agree with everything he says. Except for the part that I don't. A software architect creates a vocabulary to enable efficient communication across an entire company. That needs to be done with caution, because in a small team/organisation it's absolutely correct. In a large organisation it's just a non-confrontational way of saying "We need an enterprise architecture." That ends up becoming an IT dictionary whose value is to IT alone [1]. And IT serves the business. Not the other way 'round. If you're doing this in a large organisation, do it for a project, and not for the organisation. It's right up there with the architect that sees an enterprise service bus as a silver bullet. Aka a unicorn. Edit: [1] Unless you're HP Services, IBM, ATOS, Cap Gemini or some similar systems integrator, because if you're one of them you're in the business of selling billable hours, and an enterprise architecture is an awesome way of billing to eternity without even having to deliver business value.