SharePoint architecture is getting a lot of attention. Is it a silver bullet? We think not! It is surely critical to today's business success, yet it requires technical, business and organizational talents that warrant their own path of career development, education and research.
SharePoint architects communicate mainly with business owners within a company and with the technical staff that delivers the solution. The projects they work on affect the enterprise and they design the solution to take advantage of the existing assets, integrate them into the existing environment, follow the enterprise architecture, and solve the business problems of the business owner or unit. They are primarily responsible for taking a project through envisioning and design, and are more consultative to the project manager during the development and deployment phases, ensuring the project stays true to the architecture, timelines, and budgets. If problems occur, they are escalated to the solutions architect.