As a technical architect at Conchango my remit of technologies has become much broader than ever before. With breadth comes two problems: so wide, but so shallow as to add no value or you work yourself to death with the unrealistic goal of knowing everything about everything.
It is a common complaint amongst the technical community that the field has become so massive that it is no longer realistic to know all about all. There is a finite amount of time to absorb and experience. Period. So what gives?
My role requires that I know a fair amount about .Net (including ASP.Net, WF, WCF, Silverlight, MSBuild, Sandcastle etc.), SQL Server (including mirroring, log shipping, service broker, SSIS, Reporting Services etc.), BizTalk Server, MOSS, FAST, Scene 7, CoreMetrics, WebTrends, Commerce Server 2007, Content Delivery Networks, Performance, Scalability, Availability, Security, Maintainability, Operations, Hosting, Supportability. I have to understand how these products are sized, licensed and deployed. It is also good for me to be aware of other solutions such as DotNetNuke, Astoria, PopFly or relevant open source projects such as the Community Kit for SharePoint. Then there are all the upcoming versions, roadmaps and visions. It is just endless and I know I am not alone facing this challenge.
So how do I do this but remain relevant? I read as much as I can (MSDN, RSS and wherever the links take me). I listen to as many podcasts as I can. Of course I actually work with these technologies on a day to day basis. That's still not enough.
Conchango is loaded with Subject Matter Experts (SME) that are totally brilliant in all sorts of wonderful ways from Business Intelligence to Silverlight, from WebLogic to Ruby, from ISEB practitioners to Agile leading lights, from User Experience and design experts to Retail gurus. The only way I can possibly do what I do is to identify with each of the SMEs with whom I can relate to a sufficient degree. For example, when helping to put an architecture together I don't pretend I know how the backplane of a SAN is spread across each of the trays in a HP EVA SAN and where there might be single points of failure. I know someone who does. I can explain to him the architecturally significant challenges that I face and I can learn and leverage his expertise and put it into the context I need. This is what is so awesome about working with so many gifted people with so much passion. I can cover so much more when standing on the shoulders of giants.
There is still one problem. Genchi Genbutsu. Getting involved and remaining in contact with the delivery of customer solutions is a vital way to keeping it real and making sure one doesn't become a "Marchitect". This is where the marketing misleads the lazy architect about the reality of solutions. I have encountered marchitects far too often and it is embarrassing. They represent the pinnacle of technology yet they are so clearly out of touch with reality and doom so much and so many to certain failure. How many times have you seen the "ivory tower" architecture departments? I hope someone tells me if I stray into this camp.
Genchi Genbutsu is just vital.