A good Solution Architect leads teams across multiple orgs without relying on titles or chain of command. This only works when people trust that following you will actually LEAD them to a win. In the role of Solution Architect you must EARN that trust by demonstrating a high degree of competence in every single area that the project or enterprise touches. In other words, a good Solution Architect can: - Make and keep commitments. - Prioritize work so that the most effective and most critical work is done first. - Write and speak to anybody, using language that is relevant to their domain, area of expertise, etc... - Take responsibility for problems, even when they aren't your fault. - Ask questions in a way that invites others to share the WHOLE problem, not just the part they think you care about (you're a Solution Architect, you actually need to care about everything anyway). - Understand and break down complex ideas so others can get to work quickly. - Read and write code in the platforms that are relevant to the project. You don't have to be a "rockstar developer" or whatever, but you DO need to be able to speak and work within the context of software development. You can't build trust or solve the really hard problems if you can't get into the weeds with the rest of the team from time to time. - Quickly learn business needs and be able to parse them from the perspective of the customer AND the programmer. - Maintain a "big picture" model of the project, as customized solutions often have downstream effects that are note readily apparrent to functionally silo'd teams. For example: you can't expect your eCommerce shopping site developer to know or care about a CSV export that the finance team needs to send to their accountant in London, but decisions made in a web shopping flow could impact that finance report, especially if the web team needs to implement new data models that change the way an order is handled.This is what I do, every day.

Product Management, Requirements Analysis and Documentation for various domains:Enterprise Backoffice, eCommerce, Mobile Apps (iOS and Android). Payment processing, Corporate Finance Systems, Inventory Management, CRM, MS SQL Reporting, Web and Retail Sales.Vendor Management, Global Market Strategy, Business Reporting. Some Project Management as well as Quality Assurance but not my primary roles.

Payment processing, e-commerce, airline/travel industry, global markets.

Managed training of all new Servicedesk employees.

Global Service Desk: frontline support of all computer software, hardware and networking issues for HR and Payroll departments.

Consultant for Zions Bancorporation, Outlook Exchange conversion project.