Generally Accepted Knowledge
ITarchitecture is an emerging and quickly evolving profession, so there are manyareas that are not yet accepted as mainstream. An ArcBOK should focus onidentifying and describing all the knowledge and only the knowledge that isgenerally accepted in the architectural community.
What is"generally accepted" knowledge? The Project Management Institute in its Guideto the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) defines generally acceptedknowledge for project management in the following manner:
"Generallyaccepted" means that the knowledge and practices described are applicable tomost projects most of the time, and that there is widespread consensus abouttheir value and usefulness. "Generally accepted" does not mean that theknowledge and practices described are or should be applied uniformly on allprojects; the project-management team is always responsible for determiningwhat is appropriate for any given project.
In the ITarchitecture we have another degree of complexity: There are many flavors ofarchitects, and more architectural subdisciplines sprout each year. Thegenerally accepted knowledge of a typical solution architect is quite differentfrom the generally accepted knowledge of an enterprise architect or securityarchitect. The ArcBOK should encompass all of these yet make a cleardistinction of which area is core and which area is supportive, depending onthe architectural subdiscipline.
The Body of Knowledge
We need tobe very precise with the definition of the ArcBOK: It should be the total sumof all available knowledge in the area of IT architecture, classified by theappropriate taxonomy of knowledge areas. Development and recognition of a corebody of knowledge is essential to the development of the profession,accreditations, and university curricula.
IT evolvesso fast that capturing the architectural knowledge itself would make the ArcBOKobsolete even before it would be consolidated, reviewed, and published. Insteadof capturing and republishing the knowledge itself, the ArcBOK should become ametaknowledge reference base, with a complete 360-degree view of the referencematerial required to perform the job of IT architect adequately.
The processof building the ArcBOK should follow the consensus-building process, asking thecommunity and professional bodies for feedback and comments. It should bedivided and subdivided into knowledge areas, the major components of adiscipline, or subfields of study.
The following example is a facile model of knowledge areas of the ArcBOK (see Figure 2):
- Design management—Activities related to requirements gathering, modeling, visualization, and communication of IT designs
- Analysis management—Activities related to analysis, deduction, innovation, creativity, and problem solving
- Delivery management—Activities related to project, engagement, transformation, development, planning, coordinating, and quality management
- People management—Activities related to leadership, organizational politics, stakeholder, and relationship management
- Strategy management—Activities related to defining the business intent, enterprise strategy, and road maps
- Financial and Legal management—Activities related to billing, sourcing, legislation, and procurement
- Life-cycle management—Activities that focus on various stages of the IT life cycle, including envisioning, SLA management, change management, and IT decommissioning
Eachknowledge area should be divided into knowledge competencies, specific to thatarea, and each competency should get the list of resources available.
Extracted From - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/cc505967.aspx
