The Myth of the Omniscient Enterprise Architect

Greetings, architecture warriors!

This week, we bust a myth older than some legacy systems: that the Enterprise Architect must be an all-knowing oracle with divine insight into every system, strategy, spaghetti-coded app, and stakeholder mood swing.

The Scenario: The Oracle Summons

You walk into a meeting.

“Quick question,” says the VP of Digital, “What’s our Kubernetes autoscaling strategy in APAC?”

Before you can Google “Kubernetes,” the Head of Risk chimes in, “Also, do we have audit trails for all GDPR-sensitive objects touching the ETL pipeline from Q2?”

You blink.

Then the CFO leans in: “And can you confirm how this impacts our five-year roadmap, cost projections, and employee satisfaction?”

Suddenly, the room goes quiet. All eyes are on you. The enterprise architect. The all-seeing eye of Mordor, expected to provide answers, clarity, and maybe a cappuccino.

TOGAF to the Rescue

Here’s the thing: TOGAF never claimed you need to be omniscient — just methodical. That’s what Architecture Repositories, Building Blocks, and good old Views and Viewpoints are for.

Want to answer 42 questions across 7 domains? Don’t. Delegate. Reference. Create traceable artifacts. Remind them:

Educational Twist: Architect ≠ All-Knowing

Let’s dismantle the myth:

• Use the Architecture Repository as your single source of truth. It’s not just a place for forgotten diagrams.

• Leverage Viewpoints to filter information based on stakeholder concerns — not everything is everyone’s business.

• Maintain a strong meta-model — relationships between artifacts are your cheat sheet.

• Enable federated architecture. You’re not alone. You shouldn’t be.

Humor in Diagrams

Reader Engagement

Have you ever been mistaken for an omniscient being? What’s the wildest “quick question” you’ve been asked in a meeting?
🗨️ Share your story — the best ones may feature in a future issue!

Next Week’s Tease

🧩 The RACI Matrix Puzzle: Who’s responsible, accountable, consulted, or just plain confused?
Spoiler: It’s usually all of them.