09/28/2009 09:58:58 AM EST

Who cares if he can be persuasive. Give him the power to fire people and he won't need to be persuasive. The power of God in his hand will be persuasive enough that everyone will have to do what he says. Workers get paid to do what they are told; they shouldn't need to be persuaded.

United StatesMH

09/28/2009 05:48:53 PM EST

Wanted to send you a note that this article in SD on The Top 10 Enterprise Architecture Blunders is EXCELLENT! I couldn't agree more with the list. Madame Albright even said that no matter how complex or simple the issues...it comes down to relationships. Hope you don't mind that I tweeted the article link to my followers.

United StatesPat Ferdinandi, Chief Thought Translator

09/29/2009 12:08:02 PM EST

"one of them knows architecture pretty well and is weak on the soft skills" This should be rephrase to "one of them knows architecture pretty well with strong the soft skills and only know how to use word and ppt." Many enterprise architect know nothing about programming, even basic logic. The fact is a good architect should have some basic common sense. For example, a = b; c = a; If b is changed, c will be changed. I know it is VERY COMPLEX and IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND. I am not scaring the architects. Please learn some logic like this or print and stick it on the wall.

Canadapuzzlefun

09/30/2009 06:47:05 AM EST

'You can teach someone architecture relatively quickly, but you can’t teach this other stuff'. I think exactly the opposite: Basic Soft skills can be easily learned with training (although natural talent helps, of course). It seems that R. Scott Bittler, 'vice president of Gartner's IT research division' and 'expert of enterprise architecture at Gartner' knowledge about software architecture comes from his experience as lawyer, marketing or maybe football player. Any real software engineer knows that learning architecture is a matter of years, because what makes a good technical architect is a mix of knowledge and experience. Soft skills are also required, indeed, but if you use a magnetic-personality TV presenter as software architect after a short technical training, it's quite likely that your project will find a few problems in its way.

SpainJesus

09/30/2009 09:53:15 AM EST

Team members aren't the only group that persuasion can be helpful with. The "soft" skills are probably more useful when dealing with those outside the group. Note that the "persuasion" in #2 and 3 is directed at the stakeholders and business units that will be using the project when complete. I have known Designers/Architects/Analysts with 4 or 5 active projects each. All of these were stalled waiting for the input of end users, outside the team a Lead can intimidate with firing. A Lead that can persuade those people is more useful to complete the project than a petty tyrant.

United StatesJN