By E.G. Nadhan
Ten #ChiefArchitects walked into the Seasons52 restaurant in Plano, TX to kickoff the first ever Dallas meetup of the Chief Architect Forum [CAF] community here. The invitation sent out by the CAF leaders [Anthony Sneed and Rameshwar Balanagu] for this open house setting worked the magic.
So, why did these fine leaders take the time to come for this event? Here are the reasons that emerged when we went round the table answering this question. Each attendee had their own compelling reason — all of them great reasons why other members should consider applying as well.
1. Respect for the initiative and good work of Paul Preiss in the past
2. Used to be part of another group years back which is not thriving anymore
3. Learning from like-minded peers
4. Obtaining an unbiased, objective and neutral perspective on architecture
5. Increase awareness about how standards and guidelines have been applied and enforced
6. On the lookout for the next opportunity
The next question we discussed is the topic(s) that we can consider in the upcoming meetups — clearly, this is not a shy crowd. Here is what came out of that round of discussions:
1. Architecture and Governance across the enterprise
2. Packaging the communication to executive leadership
3. Exercising leadership from an architectural perspective
4. Managing change
5. Architectural integration across various layers, across the enterprise and with trading partners
6. Incubate ideas for newer approaches to architecture
7. Making architecture relevant to the vision and mission
8. Architecting innovation
9. Road mapping business capability and architecture
10. Keep the architecture profession from being discarded.
There you have it. While this event was being planned, our CAF leaders in the Dallas area — Anthony Sneed and Rameshwar Balanagu had not met any of these fine individuals before. But, leave it to Chief Architects to open up, exchange thoughts in making such gatherings a valuable experience!
Looking forward to these #ChiefArchitects and others “Apply to Join” on the Chief Architect Forum website!