Comments on: Is Solution Architect a Good Career Path for a Business Systems Analyst? https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/help-a-ba-is-solution-architect-a-good-career-path-for-a-business-systems-analyst/ We'll Help You Start Your Business Analyst Career Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:05:17 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 By: Brian Paxton https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/help-a-ba-is-solution-architect-a-good-career-path-for-a-business-systems-analyst/comment-page-1/#comment-429870 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:05:17 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=6243#comment-429870 From a salary perspective there’s not a massive difference between a senior BA and an SA however architects are typically paid a little more. If you google average salaries for the two roles it’s pretty easy to find the differences.

Whilst there is a degree of overlap within the roles, to be a good BA you will need excellent analysis skills and to be a good SA your going to need to be more skilled from a technology perspective. For the right individual though I think it would be a fairly easy transition.

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By: John https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/help-a-ba-is-solution-architect-a-good-career-path-for-a-business-systems-analyst/comment-page-1/#comment-429869 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:47:51 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=6243#comment-429869 There is a difference in pay between a Business Analyst and Solution Architect?
Can a SA become a BA and a SA to become a BA? Is this possible? Thanks!

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By: Brian Paxton https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/help-a-ba-is-solution-architect-a-good-career-path-for-a-business-systems-analyst/comment-page-1/#comment-429868 Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:55:49 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=6243#comment-429868 It’s interesting to see the different viewpoints on the role of the solution architect and I think it shows just how varied, and perhaps overloaded, the term architect can be within IT. There are often two extremes of architect: those who are sometimes referred to as “ivory tower” and focus on producing artefacts like metamodels and conceptual architecture diagrams and at the other end of the spectrum there are those who spend the majority of their time coding and who pride themselves on software craftsmanship and class-level design patterns.

My personal view is that as a good solutions architect you need to sit somewhere in the middle. You need to have a good understanding of the business context in which you work and be a good communicator – which are both tenets of an accomplished BA. In addition to this though you need a strong background in technology to be able to connect the enterprise level vision and technology direction to the code the developers have to write. You need to be a trusted advisor to senior managers and sometimes execs and at the same time be able to role up your sleeves enough for the development team to have confidence that you’re still connected to their world.

I think both jfbauer makes a good point around “if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. It’s important to have a wide range of tools within your tool box and to keep up to date with new technologies. This should relate well to business analysis as any experienced BA will know that different elicitation techniques work well in different situations and with different people.

Finally Laura, I think what Keith is getting at is if your organisation has decided to use the MySQL database server, just because you know how to connect to another database technology (SQL Server) doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Why does your organisation need to run two types of database technology if the one will do the job you need it to?

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By: Laura Brandenburg https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/help-a-ba-is-solution-architect-a-good-career-path-for-a-business-systems-analyst/comment-page-1/#comment-429867 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:56:59 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=6243#comment-429867 In reply to Keith Rozario.

Keith, Thanks for sharing your role. I think you are right on – this is very organization-specific and there are no standards or absolute right answers. I’m interested in your statement regarding that this is not really a technical role. Do you think a business person with no background in technology (no coding experience) could easily make the transition to solutions architect? I have a small background in some technical skills and I still don’t think I’d have the knowledge to make suitable recommendations without a lot of on-the-job research and learning on my part.

Case in point, I understand what SQL is, but this sentence doesn’t mean a whole lot to me

“in lay mans terms if everyone is using MySQL, don’t create a database with SqlServer just because you have the adapter.”

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By: Keith Rozario https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/help-a-ba-is-solution-architect-a-good-career-path-for-a-business-systems-analyst/comment-page-1/#comment-429866 Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:05:47 +0000 http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/?p=6243#comment-429866 I’ve been a Business Analyst for the past 5 years and now moving on to solution architecture. Some of the key points mentioned above are valid, but again it is company specific, and depending upon your organization and the way solution architecture works in your organization …results could vary.

My very first observation of solution architecture is that it’s not as technical as people make it out to be. The world of solution architects is to ensure that the business deliverable (i.e. the IT projects) don’t digress from the solution blueprint of the enterprise, in lay mans terms if everyone is using MySQL, don’t create a database with SqlServer just because you have the adapter.

Your enterprise will have a defined blueprint of what it hopes to accomplish architecturally over the next 3-5 years, and the job of a solution architect is to find a way to meet the business requirements without messing up the blueprint.

That being said, one of my passions on the job was problem solving, and getting things to go from idea to working concept to final solution. I loved that aspect as a BA on a project, because you stay till the end…Technically BA’s aren’t suppose to do this, but I did it in my previous role.

In the architect space, I don’t see this. What I do is a high level design that I helped formulate against a solution options. That’s it,…architects design the solution they don’t stay to the end. And that’s what people mean by architects are very high level…they help define the scope of the project and the deliverable, but they don’t help deliver it…that’s a job for the Project team.

I’m still pretty new to this architect role, and my actual job title is project solution architect. So I’m unsure what to expect, however to me it was a logical step for my career progression, it wasn’t a step up but a lateral step, but like one of the commenters said, lateral steps aren’t to be frowned upon.

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