UTC CTO Peer to Peer

We had a great UTC CTO Peer to Peer meeting this morning. The discussion was regarding Architecture, and how and when to "do" architecture. We talked a bit about agile processes, and how to fit architectural re-writes into the iterations.

The most interesting part of the discussion to me was the evolution of a Product Architect (i.e, the career path that leads to this role, and how one progresses toward it), as well as how that role differs from a technical architect (i.e., the bits-and-bytes architect). The concepts brought out by the presenter, and others in the room during the ensuing discussion, validated some of the concepts that I have recently blogged about: namely, that there needs to be one Product Architect who is responsible for the entire product. The discussion took this one step farther, though, and determined that this role has many over-lapping duties with the Product Manager. So much so, was the conclusion of the presenter, that the roles actually should be one-and-the-same.

Very interesting discussion, and something I need to put more thought into.