Book Review: Zoom Factor for the Enterprise Architect: How to Focus and Accelerate Your Career
A fellow group member on the "Togaf for Architecture" LinkedIn group suggested that I check out Zoom Factor to help guide my career transition into Enterprise Architecture.
After reading a couple of positive reviews I decided to purchase the book. For me, I consider a book useful or valuable if it does at least one of three things:
Provide a handful of "Of course" moments where it confirms something you subconsciously already knew, but now that it has been categorized can be referred to in the future.
Provide "Useful" intellectual capital that will save you time in the future. It could be a model, a pattern or some other technique that you can apply either today or refer to in the future.
Provide a "Eureka" moment of insight where it enlightens you to a new line of thinking or radically adjusts your view by uncovering a different perspective.
So how did Zoom Factor measure up?
Before I answer that, I would be remiss if I did not describe the book and its intended purpose first.
Zoom Factor for the Enterprise Architect is a 330 page paperback written by Sharon C. Evans and published in November, 2010. It is aimed at three different audiences: new or aspiring IT Architects and Enterprise Architects, IT Architecture Managers and Chief Architects, and Chief Information Officers. I fall in the first group, so this review will be most useful to those who are likewise entering the EA space.
The book is broken up into five sections that strive to assist the reader in achieving Enterprise Architectural Excellence, namely: Set your Foundation, Perfect the Process, Realize Your Soft Skills, Propel Your Perspective and Gain Altitude through Strategy. The idea being that by becoming an excellent architect your career will naturally follow suit.
While there was no "Eureka" moment for me, I did find a lot of "Of course" and many "Useful" moments. Each of the 21 chapters ends with a set of checklists that Zoom In and Zoom Out, providing both low and high level perspectives on each of the topics. While some of these felt contrived to fit the format, I will definitely refer to some of them when following an EA framework like TOGAF if for nothing else than to check for completeness of deliverables.
Additionally the checklists from chapter 1, the associated career roadmap on p.120 and the accompaniment that the author provides on her web site are simply excellent, no nonsense, guides to the skills and capabilities that one must build upon in the journey towards becoming an excellent Enterprise Architect. These assets clearly identify for a potential architect where their skills gaps lie and provide suggestions on how to address them.
Lastly, while the laundry list of skills, capabilities and knowledge that are identified seems extensive, the author does a good job of regularly reminding the reader that it is simply impossible to be an expert in everything and nor need you be. Additionally, chapter 20 on becoming a change master, highlights the critical challenge facing EA's and will truly help a person to decide if a career in Enterprise Architecture is the right choice.
While I did have a positive reaction to most of the book, I did find some of the sections somewhat verbose and could have been more concise, but then again having had a lot of exposure to project management and other soft skills, it may be that the more traditional IT architect would benefit from the additional hand holding.
The other concern I had, was that the author seemed to be somewhat critical of TOGAF, going so far as to state "... many feel this framework is better suited for solution architecture than for enterprise architecture ...".
She appeared to prefer Zachman or even just following a method that she outlines at a high level in the book. I suspect this is due to the heavy weight nature of TOGAF as a general framework, with the author stressing agility. Until I have spent some time learning the Zachman framework and experiencing an EA project first hand, I can not really judge if this is fair criticism or not.
Ultimately, I found the book to have some useful assets which can be used when following an EA framework, and the guidance around what skills are required will save any entrant into the EA field significant time. I know exactly what skills I need to work on and I've already started working on them. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone aspiring to become an Enterprise Architect.
