Context of Architecture Roles

Today I was triggered by some posts where there was some opinions on where the line between Architecture and Design is.

One discussion was around an interesting blog post from Mark Wilson: "Where's the line between [IT] Architecture and Design". From my point of view Chris Potts answered it in a great way:

No line. An architect designs. | RT @martinhowitt: The line between architecture & design? By @markwilsonit markwilson.co.uk/blog/2013/01/w… #entarch
— Chris Potts (@chrisdpotts) Januar 23, 2013

There was a second Twitter post which caught my attention:

Architecture stops when detailed design begins. #TOGAF #EntArch
— Glen McCallum (@mccallumg) Januar 23, 2013

For both ideas I have the tendency to answer them very similar to Chris Potts: The Architect Designs, as I have also put it in my blog post GLUE Roles and Responsibilities. The [Role] Architect does deliver the [GLUE Discipline] Design. Nevertheless there is an enormous amount of specialized Architecture Titles. And it is in the nature of the discussions between the people who own the title to create clearly defined empires, so that there is preferable no overlap. Reality (for real Enterprise Architecture) is that there is always overlaps. And the good news is that the tension and friction created due to the overlap have a good chance to enforce creation of new (hopefully great) ideas.

So, don't think you are an [xxx] Architect, but know you are, then you do not have to seek for a perfect definition. (There might be no chance to find the perfect answer, but just a working one. One that works for you only). The key message though is, that it is not a title, but a role. A role which will be fulfilled in any given context, because [Enterprise] Architecture inevitable happens, no matter if the people who perform it are titled in the right way or not.