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The field of architecture in the digital world uses a plethora of terms to refer to different kinds of architects, and recognizes a confusing variety of competences that these architects are required to have. Different service providers use different terms for similar architects and even if they use the same term, they may mean something different. This makes it hard for customers to know what competences an architect can be expected to have.

This book combines competence profiles of the NGI Platform for IT Professionals, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), as well as a number of Dutch IT service providers in a comprehensive framework. Using this framework, the book shows that notwithstanding a large variety in terminology, there is convergence towards a common set of competence pro. les. In other words, when looking beyond terminological differences by using the framework, one sees that organizations recognize similar types of architects, and that similar architects in different organizations have similar competence profiles. The framework presented in this book thus provides an instrument to position architecture services as offered by IT service providers and as used by their customers.

The framework and the competence profiles presented in this book are the main results of special interest group ‘Professionalisation’ of the Netherlands Architecture Forum for the Digital World (NAF). Members of this group, as well as students of the universities of Twente and Nijmegen have contributed to the research on which this book is based.

Roel Wieringa, Pascal van Eck, Claudia Steghuis, and Erik Proper

http://www.sdu.nl/catalogus/9789012580878

Software development happens in your head. Not in an editor, IDE, or design tool. You’re well educated on how to work with software and hardware, but what about wetware - our own brains? Learning new skills and new technology is critical to your career, and it’s all in your head.

In this book by Andy Hunt, you’ll learn how our brains are wired, and how to take advantage of your brain’s architecture. You’ll learn new tricks and tips to learn more, faster, and retain more of what you learn.

You need a pragmatic approach to thinking and learning. You need to Refactor Your Wetware.

Andy Hunt

http://pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/pragmatic-thinking-and-learning

The following are axioms for software architects by software architects. They have been contributed under the Creative Commons, Attribution 3 open source license. Each axiom has a title and a description and each author has their own biography page. As a member of this site, you can comment and rate any and all axioms.

You can also write your own axioms and create your own biography page. If you have a rule-of-thumb, principle, axiom, or maxim you believe is important to being a successful software architect, this is the place to share it with the world.

While all contributions will remain freely accessible on this site, the 97 best axioms will also be included in the book, 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know, which will be published by O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Richard Monson-Haefel

http://97-things.near-time.net/wiki

Software architecture competence is the ability of an individual or organization to acquire, use, and sustain the skills and knowledge necessary to carry out software architecture-centric practices. Previous work in architecture has concentrated on its technical aspects: methods and tools for creating, analyzing, and using architecture. However, a different perspective recognizes that these activities are carried out by people working in organizations, and those people and organizations can use assistance towards consistently producing high-quality architectures.

This report lays out the basic concepts of software architecture competence and describes four models for explaining, measuring, and improving the architecture competence of an individual or a software-producing organization.

Len Bass
Paul Clements
Rick Kazman
Mark Klein

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/08.reports/08tr006.html