{"id":4730,"date":"2013-01-22T10:30:57","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T10:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4730"},"modified":"2017-01-31T20:19:47","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T20:19:47","slug":"wheres-the-line-between-it-architecture-and-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/01\/wheres-the-line-between-it-architecture-and-design.htm","title":{"rendered":"Where&#8217;s the line between [IT] architecture and design?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, I&#8217;m attending a training course on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qa.com\/training-courses\/business-analysis-and-systems-development-training\/enterprise-and-solution-architecture\/architecture-and-design-of-distributed-enterprise-systems\/\">architecture and design of distributed enterprise systems<\/a> and yesterday morning, somewhat mischievously, I asked the course instructor where he draws the distinction between architecture and design.<\/p>\n<p>We explored an analogy based about a traditional (building) architect in which I suggested an architect knows the methods and materials to use but would not actually carry out the construction work. But the instructor, Selvyn Wright, made an interesting point &#8211; if we admire a building for it&#8217;s stunning architecture, often we&#8217;re talking about the <em>design<\/em>. Instead, he suggested that architecture is a style or philosophy whereas design is about the detail.<\/p>\n<p>In the UK IT industry, the last 10 years or so have seen a trend towards &#8220;architect&#8221; job roles in business and IT. Maybe this is because the UK is one of the few countries where to be a great engineer is discouraged and technical skills are undervalued, rather than being held up as a worthy profession.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, there is a grey line between an architect and a designer and I had frequent conversations with my previous manager on the topic (usually whilst discussing my own development on the path towards enterprise architecture &#8211; another commonly mis-used term, probably best saved for another post). Regardless, architecture and design do get mixed (in an IT context) and there comes a point in the transition when one can look back and say &#8220;ah yes, now I understand&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I suggest that point is when someone is able to abstract the logical capabilities of a system from the technology itself. At that point, they&#8217;ve probably crossed the line from a designer to an architect.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, an architect can understand the business problem from a logical\u00a0perspective\u00a0and create one or more possible solutions. The required capabilities are the logical model and the physical elements are those which need be bought, built or reused to match those capabilities. <em>Architecture is about recognising and employing patterns.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Having decided what an architect is, we come to the issue of design. Indeed, design is a word more often used in a creative sense &#8211; a website designer, for example, has a distinct set of skills that are very different to those of a website developer. Ditto for a user interface designer or for a user experience designer. Within the context of the architect vs. designer debate, however, a designer can be viewed as someone whose task it is to work out how to configure the physical elements of the solution and create designs for elements of software applications, or of IT infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Architect or designer, either way, I still struggle with the term &#8220;architected&#8221;. Designed seems to be a more grammatically correct use of English (adding further complexity to the design vs. architecture debate) but it seems increasingly common to <em>architect<\/em>\u00a0(as a verb) these days&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, I&#8217;m attending a training course on the architecture and design of distributed enterprise systems and yesterday morning, somewhat mischievously, I asked the course instructor where he draws the distinction between architecture and design. We explored an analogy based about a traditional (building) architect in which I suggested an architect knows the methods and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/01\/wheres-the-line-between-it-architecture-and-design.htm\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Where&#8217;s the line between [IT] architecture and design?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[166,516,517],"class_list":["post-4730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-architecture","tag-design","tag-english"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Where&#039;s the line between [IT] architecture and design? - markwilson.it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/01\/wheres-the-line-between-it-architecture-and-design.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where&#039;s the line between [IT] architecture and design? - markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week, I&#8217;m attending a training course on the architecture and design of distributed enterprise systems and yesterday morning, somewhat mischievously, I asked the course instructor where he draws the distinction between architecture and design. 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It's become abundantly clear to me that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/fantasy-782001_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/fantasy-782001_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/fantasy-782001_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/fantasy-782001_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/fantasy-782001_1920.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8431,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2022\/06\/the-symbiotic-relationship-between-engineering-and-architecture.htm","url_meta":{"origin":4730,"position":1},"title":"The symbiotic relationship between engineering and architecture","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Tuesday 21 June 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm entering a new phase of life as my children are growing up. 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That involves a mindset change to progress from the role of a designer to that of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.co.uk\/e\/ir?t=marsweblo-21&l=as2&o=2&a=9087532326","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6688,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/12\/architecture-for-the-microsoft-platform-defining-standards-principles-reference-architecture-and-patterns.htm","url_meta":{"origin":4730,"position":3},"title":"Architecture for the Microsoft platform: defining standards, principles, reference architecture and patterns","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 1 December 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"IT architecture is a funny old game... you see, no-one does it the same way. Sure, we have frameworks and there's a lot of discussion about \"how\" to \"architect\" (is that even a verb?) but there is no defined process that I'm aware of and that's broadly adopted. A few\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Blueprint","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/c4.staticflickr.com\/3\/2511\/3770016707_bb5aca3a02_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8201,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2021\/03\/developing-it-architecture-skills.htm","url_meta":{"origin":4730,"position":4},"title":"Developing IT architecture skills","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Monday 22 March 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In a recent post, I looked at the topic of IT architecture from the perspective of what it is and why it's not all about technology. For brevity, I decided to hold off on the next logical step, which developing the associated skills. 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