​​Build a Better Enterprise Architect​

Not all enterprise architects are created equally. The enterprise architect role is context-sensitive, and what works in one organization may be the wrong posture in another. Hiring or developing for every possible skill at once can produce architects who are overwhelmed and ill-equipped to address enterprise problems. Our research gives enterprise architecture (EA) leaders and their teams a structured path to define the right role of an enterprise architect, identify the skills that matter, and roadmap development milestones tied to real stakeholder value.

Organizations often mistake technical brilliance for EA maturity, expecting architects to win credibility with frameworks, domain knowledge, and technical expertise. But successful organizations acknowledge that the skills that make enterprise architects truly effective are analytical thinking, relationship-building, and the ability to tell a compelling story that moves people to act.

1. Anchor the role to the value you are committed to deliver.

When the role is defined by broad expectations rather than specific committed outcomes, architects chase too many priorities and deliver on little. Anchor the enterprise architect role to the value your EA practice has promised stakeholders. Credibility and influence grow when the architect delivers meaningful results.

2. Prioritize human skills over technical expertise.

Technical expertise and domain specialization are no longer the primary success criteria for enterprise architects. Conceptualizing a long-term vision is one part of the role; getting stakeholders to buy into it and navigating its complexity is another. Prioritize the maturation of analytical thinking, communication, relationship building, and strategic analysis skills.

3. Show momentum early, then build for the long term.

Stakeholder confidence depends on seeing results within a reasonable timeframe. If progress takes too long to materialize, early enthusiasm fades and the role loses organizational support before it matures. Balance quick-win skill improvements with the groundwork for sustained growth, and communicate expanding the architect’s value through the services they support.

Use this framework to build a better enterprise architect

Our research offers robust tools, including a skills assessment tool and role profile template, and step-by-step guidance for crafting the enterprise architect role, assessing their skills, and roadmapping development milestones. Use this blueprint to move from a loosely defined enterprise architect role to one that is focused on delivering their commitments.

Craft your enterprise architect role by establishing a clear definition, selecting the orientation that best serves your stakeholders, and anchoring the role’s scope to your EA practice's committed value.
Prioritize and assess your enterprise architect skills using the Enterprise Architect Skills Assessment Tool to identify the gaps that matter most to your architect’s orientation without the burden of addressing every skill at once.
Roadmap your development milestones by setting objectives and metrics, sequencing skill development activities across one, three, and six-month horizons, and capturing outputs in the Enterprise Architect Role Profile Template.

Build a Better Enterprise Architect Research & Tools

1. Build a Better Enterprise Architect Storyboard – A framework that walks EA leaders through a full methodology for defining, assessing, and developing the enterprise architect role.

This storyboard outlines three steps from role definition through skills assessment to development roadmapping.

Explore nine enterprise architect orientations and select the one or two that best align with your practice needs.
Work through the enterprise architect skills framework covering analytical thinking, communication, design, and strategic analysis.
Communicate the objectives and purpose of this role to stakeholders for continuous buy-in and support.

2. Enterprise Architect Skills Assessment Tool — An Excel-based template that gives EA leaders a structured way to identify, prioritize, and evaluate current EA skills across individual architects or the broader practice.

This assessment is built to surface what skills matter most for your architect’s orientation, avoiding the trap of evaluating every skill at once.

Score current enterprise architect skills across different roles in your organization using a structured scale.
Sort and filter skills by priority to identify the highest-impact gaps based on what your architect needs to achieve.
Use findings to guide development conversations, training plans, and milestone-setting in the Role Profile Template.

3. Enterprise Architect Role Profile Template – A deck that helps document the enterprise architect's purpose, value, and development plan and makes the case to stakeholders who may not yet see the opportunities enterprise architects bring.

All sections are direct outputs from the research activities, populated with your organization's context.

Capture the architect definition, stakeholder value commitment, key responsibilities, and reporting scope on the front side of the one-pager.
Record prioritized skills, chosen orientation, guiding principles, objectives, metrics, and development milestones on the back side.
Distribute the completed profile to build stakeholder buy-in and organizational support for the architect's growth.

Build a Better Enterprise Architect

Mature the skills that deliver your promised value to stakeholders.

Analyst perspective

Influence isn’t earned by expertise. It’s earned by storytelling.

For years, organizations have mistaken technical brilliance for enterprise architecture (EA) maturity. They expect enterprise architects to win influence and credibility by layering frameworks, domain knowledge, and technical expertise in their way of working. This should not be the case.
The power of enterprise architects does not come from models. It comes from analytical thinking, clear communication, strong storytelling, the ability to build alliances, and the courage to help leaders navigate uncertainty and complexity with confidence.
Prospective enterprise architects do not need to be a coder or a strategist first. They need the curiosity to learn how everything connects and to mold themselves to how the organization grows, transforms, and competes. Once an enterprise architect stops chasing the universal desire to please everyone and focuses on a narrow, high-impact mandate, their influence and credibility flourishes and scales.

Andrew Kum-Seun. Caleb Pittman

Andrew Kum-Seun and Caleb Pittman
Applications Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Your Challenge	Common Obstacles	Info-Tech’s Approach
As organizations mature and adopt more integrated and intelligent technologies, specific activities become even more critical for success: Mapping IT initiatives with strategic business priorities, stakeholder expectations, and organizational capabilities. Managing and scaling redundant, outdated, and fragmented processes and technologies. Ensuring flexibility of IT operations and technologies while adhering to quality standards. An EA practice brings order to this growing complexity. For the practice to be successful, it needs skilled enterprise architects.	Acquiring an enterprise architect is not as simple as hiring a technical expert. It involves building the necessary foundations for them to succeed. However, many factors stand in the way: Not all enterprise architects are created equal. They can embody different orientations that complicate the scope of skills to focus on. The role is contextually sensitive. How and where enterprise architects engage is dependent on their reputation, influence, and cultural awareness. Mandatory skills are continuously evolving. Rapid business priorities and technology shifts are disrupting development plans. Today’s critical knowledge and skills can be outdated tomorrow.	Establish your role as an enterprise architect. State the value you want your enterprise architects to bring. Then, thoughtfully shape the role to the orientation that can best deliver that value. Identify and assess your most critical skills. Prioritize the skills that you need to support your EA practice’s commitment to stakeholders. Create a roadmap and communicate your vision. Lay out your primary objectives and metrics for your enterprise architect. Communicate the purpose, value, and approach to interested stakeholders with an enterprise architect role profile.

Your Challenge

Common Obstacles

Info-Tech’s Approach

As organizations mature and adopt more integrated and intelligent technologies, specific activities become even more critical for success:

Mapping IT initiatives with strategic business priorities, stakeholder expectations, and organizational capabilities.
Managing and scaling redundant, outdated, and fragmented processes and technologies.
Ensuring flexibility of IT operations and technologies while adhering to quality standards.

An EA practice brings order to this growing complexity. For the practice to be successful, it needs skilled enterprise architects.

Acquiring an enterprise architect is not as simple as hiring a technical expert. It involves building the necessary foundations for them to succeed. However, many factors stand in the way:

Not all enterprise architects are created equal. They can embody different orientations that complicate the scope of skills to focus on.
The role is contextually sensitive. How and where enterprise architects engage is dependent on their reputation, influence, and cultural awareness.
Mandatory skills are continuously evolving. Rapid business priorities and technology shifts are disrupting development plans. Today’s critical knowledge and skills can be outdated tomorrow.

Establish your role as an enterprise architect. State the value you want your enterprise architects to bring. Then, thoughtfully shape the role to the orientation that can best deliver that value.
Identify and assess your most critical skills. Prioritize the skills that you need to support your EA practice’s commitment to stakeholders.
Create a roadmap and communicate your vision. Lay out your primary objectives and metrics for your enterprise architect. Communicate the purpose, value, and approach to interested stakeholders with an enterprise architect role profile.

Info-Tech Insight
The industry treats enterprise architects as universal problem-solvers. This dilutes their identity and influence due to their mandate to please everyone. Mold the enterprise architect’s orientation to the people they serve and steer away from those they do not. When they narrow their scope to a few achievable expectations, their credibility deepens and expands.

Build a better enterprise architect

Mature the skills that deliver your promised value to stakeholders.

Know Your Strategic Priorities	Adopt the Right Orientations	Cement Your Foundations	Expand Your Skills to Mature Your Role
Identify the critical business outcomes your stakeholders are pursuing so you can deliver the EA practice they need. This alignment ensures everything you do is relevant, influential, and tied directly to measurable results. Refer to Info-Tech’s Build Your EA Practice Strategy.	Embrace the mindset, behaviors, and focus of one or a combination of orientations needed to deliver your business value commitments: Strategist Business Interpreter System Thinker Protector Portfolio Manager Innovator Delivery Partner Coach & Mentor Change Agent	Build a solid grounding of key skills required to lead complex conversations with confidence. These skills are critical for all enterprise architects: Analytical Thinking Communication Social & Relational Strategic Analysis & Planning Design	Extend your reach and involvement across the organization by supplementing your foundations with specific interdisciplinary and technical skills: Capability & Solution Delivery Organization Leadership Domain Expertise Practice Management Innovation

Know Your Strategic Priorities

Adopt the Right Orientations

Cement Your Foundations

Expand Your Skills to Mature Your Role

Identify the critical business outcomes your stakeholders are pursuing so you can deliver the EA practice they need. This alignment ensures everything you do is relevant, influential, and tied directly to measurable results.

Refer to Info-Tech’s Build Your EA Practice Strategy.

Embrace the mindset, behaviors, and focus of one or a combination of orientations needed to deliver your business value commitments:

Strategist
Business Interpreter
System Thinker
Protector
Portfolio Manager
Innovator
Delivery Partner
Coach & Mentor
Change Agent

Build a solid grounding of key skills required to lead complex conversations with confidence. These skills are critical for all enterprise architects:

Analytical Thinking
Communication
Social & Relational
Strategic Analysis & Planning
Design

Extend your reach and involvement across the organization by supplementing your foundations with specific interdisciplinary and technical skills:

Capability & Solution Delivery
Organization Leadership
Domain Expertise
Practice Management
Innovation

Insight Summary

Info-Tech Insight
The industry treats enterprise architects as universal problem-solvers. This dilutes their identity and influence due to their mandate to please everyone. Mold the enterprise architect’s orientation to the people they serve and steer away from those they do not. When they narrow their scope to a few achievable expectations, their credibility deepens and expands.

Step 1	Industry standards and frameworks may not fully capture what your organization needs in an enterprise architect. Anchor the enterprise architect role to the value your EA practice is committed to delivering. The organizational credibility and influence of your architects improve when stakeholders see meaningful outcomes.
Step 2	Technical expertise and EA domain specialization are no longer the primary success criteria. Prioritize the maturity of your analytical thinking, communication, relationship-building, and strategic analysis skills. Transformation cannot start if stakeholders cannot agree on the destination or understand the impacts of their decisions.
Step 3	The excitement for enterprise architects will quickly lose momentum if it takes too long to show expected outcomes. Balance quick-win skill improvements with the groundwork for long-term growth. Communicate the maturing value of your enterprise architects through the EA services they can now support.

Info-Tech’s methodology for building a better enterprise architect

	Pre-Work: Set the EA Context	1. Craft Your Enterprise Architect Role	2. Prioritize & Assess Your EA Skills	3. Roadmap Your Development Milestones
Activities	0.1 Detail your EA practice strategy	1.1 Establish the role of the enterprise architect 1.2 Define the orientation of your enterprise architects	2.1 Prioritize your EA skills 2.2 Assess your EA skills	3.1 Define your objectives and metrics 3.2 Build your development roadmap 3.3 Complete your role profile
Step Outcomes	The context, organizational objectives and strategy of your EA practice	Your enterprise architect definition Selection of the right enterprise architect orientation(s)	Your prioritized and assessed skills	Enterprise architect objectives and metrics Enterprise architect skills development milestones and roadmap A completed enterprise architect role profile

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Blueprint deliverables.

Key deliverable:

Enterprise Architect Role Profile

Use Info-Tech’s template to document and communicate the purpose, value, and skills of your enterprise architect in the language everyone can understand.

Blueprint benefits

State the Role the Enterprise Architect Must Play	Roadmap the Goals to Upskill Your Enterprise Architects
Clarify the purpose of an enterprise architect compared to domain, solution, and other flavors of architects State the role you want your enterprise architect to play in your organization considering past experiences, organizational dynamics, and stakeholder priorities. Justify the desired enterprise architect orientation by mapping it to the services and value the EA practice is committed to delivering. Notable Impacts Clearly outline the purpose, orientation, and description of the enterprise architect that will best serve your organization. Indicate when and how the enterprise architect will participate with the organization through the EA practice. Communicate the goals and purpose of the enterprise architect in the language stakeholders understand.	Indicate and prioritize the skills that must be filled to successfully deliver the value your EA practice has committed to stakeholders. State reasonable objectives for the enterprise architect and the metrics to gauge their success. Compile achievable skills development milestones for the enterprise architect and roadmap them. Notable Impacts Capture the critical skills lacking among your enterprise architects. Define achievable outcomes your enterprise architect is expected to deliver. Ensure stakeholders are bought into the investment to upskill enterprise architects and are willing to support their growth, maturity and influence.

State the Role the Enterprise Architect Must Play

Roadmap the Goals to Upskill Your Enterprise Architects

Clarify the purpose of an enterprise architect compared to domain, solution, and other flavors of architects
State the role you want your enterprise architect to play in your organization considering past experiences, organizational dynamics, and stakeholder priorities.
Justify the desired enterprise architect orientation by mapping it to the services and value the EA practice is committed to delivering.

Notable Impacts

Clearly outline the purpose, orientation, and description of the enterprise architect that will best serve your organization.
Indicate when and how the enterprise architect will participate with the organization through the EA practice.
Communicate the goals and purpose of the enterprise architect in the language stakeholders understand.

Indicate and prioritize the skills that must be filled to successfully deliver the value your EA practice has committed to stakeholders.
State reasonable objectives for the enterprise architect and the metrics to gauge their success.
Compile achievable skills development milestones for the enterprise architect and roadmap them.

Notable Impacts

Capture the critical skills lacking among your enterprise architects.
Define achievable outcomes your enterprise architect is expected to deliver.
Ensure stakeholders are bought into the investment to upskill enterprise architects and are willing to support their growth, maturity and influence.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit	Guided Implementation	Workshop	Executive & Technical Counseling	Consulting
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."	"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."	"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."	"Our team and processes are maturing; however, to expedite the journey we'll need a seasoned practitioner to coach and validate approaches, deliverables, and opportunities."	"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all five options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Pre-Work & Step 1	Step 2	Step 3
Call #1: Discuss the vision and purpose of your EA practice. Call #2: Describe the role you need the enterprise architect to play.	Call #3: Prioritize the skills you need your enterprise architect to have. Call #4: Assess the skills of your enterprise architects. Call #5: Discuss solutions to fill your skills gaps.	Call #6: Define the objectives and metrics of your enterprise architects. Call #7: Roadmap your enterprise architect development milestones.

Pre-Work & Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Call #1: Discuss the vision and purpose of your EA practice.

Call #2: Describe the role you need the enterprise architect to play.

Call #3: Prioritize the skills you need your enterprise architect to have.

Call #4: Assess the skills of your enterprise architects.

Call #5: Discuss solutions to fill your skills gaps.

Call #6: Define the objectives and metrics of your enterprise architects.

Call #7: Roadmap your enterprise architect development milestones.

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is 5 to 7 calls over the course of 2 to 3 months.

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

	Module 1	Module 2	Module 3	Module 4	Post-Workshop
Activities	Capture the Vision of Your EA Practice	Assess Your EA Skills	Learn Enterprise Architect Best Practices	Roadmap Your Development Milestones	Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)
Activities	1.1 State the roles of your EA practice and enterprise architects. 1.2 List your guiding principles. 1.3 State the objectives of your EA practice.	2.1 Select your enterprise architect orientation(s). 2.2 Prioritize your EA skills. 2.3 Assess your EA skills.	3.1 Shortlist enterprise architect best practices to adopt.	4.1 Define your enterprise architect objectives and metrics. 4.2 Build your development roadmap.	5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from the previous four days. 5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
Deliverables	Your enterprise architect definition List of EA guiding principles EA practice objectives and committed value to stakeholders	Selection of the right enterprise architect orientation(s) Your prioritized and assessed skills	Knowledge of best practices to be an effective enterprise architect Brainstorming of solutions to fill EA skills gap	Enterprise architect objectives and metrics Enterprise architect skills development milestones and roadmap	Completed workshop report summarizing key workshop outcomes and next steps

Pre-Work

Set the EA Context

Activities

0.1 Detail Your EA Practice Strategy

This step involves the following participants:

Current and prospective enterprise architects
EA leaders

Outcomes of this step

The context, organizational objectives and strategy of your EA practice

0.1 Detail your EA practice strategy

1-2 hours

Using your current understanding of your EA practice, write your answers to the following questions on the next slide. Your responses will help complete the activities in this blueprint. If you are unable to answer all these questions, read through and refer to Info-Tech’s Build Your EA Practice Strategy, which acts as a prerequisite for this blueprint.

What is the purpose of your EA practice?
What are the objectives of your EA practice?
What services do you want your EA practice to provide?
What value do you want your EA practice to deliver?
What is the scope of your EA practice?
What are the guiding principles of your EA practice?

Download a copy of the Enterprise Architect Role Profile Template.
Enter your practice’s guiding principles into the “Guiding Principles” section of your Enterprise Architect Role Profile Template.

Download the Enterprise Architect Role Profile Template

Input
Existing knowledge of your EA practice
Output
The goals, objectives, provided services, values, vision, and guiding principles for your EA practice

0.1 Detail your EA practice strategy (continued)

What is the purpose of your EA practice?	What are the objectives of your EA practice?	What services do you want your EA practice to provide?	What value do you want your EA practice to deliver?	What is the scope of your EA practice?	What are the guiding principles of your EA practice?

0.1 Detail your EA practice strategy (continued)

Example answers

What is the purpose of your EA practice?	What are the objectives of your EA practice?	What services do you want your EA practice to provide?	What value do you want your EA practice to deliver?	What is the scope of your EA practice?	What are the guiding principles of your EA practice?
Enterprise architecture is an intricate discipline and a strategic business capability that addresses an organization's strategy, operations, structures, and behaviors. Its intent is to illustrate how an organization can most effectively move toward the future state and achieve its strategic objectives.	Improve stakeholder satisfaction with the planned program and services portfolio scope by 10% in the fiscal year. Increase the dollar value of project benefits realized with EA involvement. Decrease the average time to turn strategic business objectives into agreed-upon and approved initiatives.	Strategy development – Guide and collaborate on organizational strategies, planning, and analysis. Innovation – Manage and enable innovation and provide insights on trends and hypes. Domain-specific architectures – Support the analysis and design of architectural artifacts across all domains within the practice’s scope.	Evaluate initiative investments – Identify overlapping, conflicting, or redundant initiatives and opportunities for consolidating technologies. Plan new product rollout – Consider the impact on existing products and scale benefits. Assess if the organization requires transformations to effectively support the new product and what transformations are required. Shift the business model – Transform the entire organization to a new business model, prioritizing where the largest opportunities exist and impact can be maximized.	The EA practice is a shared strategic unit partnering with product, operations, and finance This practice covers all IT efforts and the business, data, application, and technology architecture domains. This includes the contextual, conceptual, and logical depths of each domain.	Focus on enterprise value — Optimize for long-term, enterprise outcomes over local wins while balancing total costs, risks, and shared benefits. Ensure fit for purpose — Right-size designs to the current and future needs of the organization, avoid over-engineering, and keep investment costs proportional to value delivered. Simplify solutions — Apply the simplest workable approach to reduce operational complexity and improve adaptability over the lifecycle. Embed security and ethics in all architectures – Ensure all solutions meet legal and regulatory requirements and ethics policies.

Mature the EA skills that deliver your promised value to stakeholders.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Guided Implementation 1: Craft Your Enterprise Architect Role

Call 1: Discuss the vision and purpose of your EA practice.
Call 2: Describe the role you need the enterprise architect to play.

Guided Implementation 2: Prioritize & Assess Your EA Skills

Call 1: Prioritize the skills you need your enterprise architect to have.
Call 2: Assess the skills of your enterprise architects.
Call 3: Discuss solutions to fill your skills gaps.

Guided Implementation 3: Roadmap Your Development Milestones

Call 1: Define the objectives and metrics of your enterprise architects.
Call 2: Roadmap your enterprise architect development milestones.

Authors

Andrew Kum-Seun

Caleb Pittman

Contributors

Cullen Hale, Enterprise Architect, Consumers Energy
Ravi Guyyala, Enterprise Technology Architect Lead, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Julian Hirjoi, Head of Enterprise Architecture, Ent Credit Union
5 anonymous contributors