Agile Architect

Does it exist at all?

When we are talking about agile we can say: agile methodology, agile team, agile programmer. But who is the architect?
Architect used to be the mediator between the business and the IT. He has been used to feel safe that programmers did not fool poor users. Another part of his job was to preserve code quality and system integrity against stupid programmers.

Isn't it enough to think of programmers as lazy, dumb, bad ass guys?

With agile methodologies an era has ended: the era of quantity. Now we esteem quality. What matters more: the quality is measured by the customer, not by an abstract QA team. Agile team members (not just the programmers only) are devoted to deploy value. From this point of view who needs yet another guy to point out the relevance of quality?

We are not yet there!

The problem is that most of companies do want to change (speed up, make cheaper, stabilize) their development methodology to gain business advantage (or just catch up with the others) but their agile is just something that can be used to push their requirements (without much resistance from programmers). The problem is that most programmers do want to move from making piece of crap to make pieces of craft but their agile is just something where one can have enough time to make something real cool.
Both intents are understandable and acceptable. But agile is more! Agile is about the customer. Agile is an open, honest relationship between the participants of the project. And most people do not know that. And that is where the agile architect comes in!

Design Agile

Agile architect is the mapping tool and navigation assistant to teams in moving from traditional projects to agile projects. The destination must be estimated according to the life situation of the team, company and customer. The road must be planned to make thing more and more agile. The progress must be reflected during the ride. Off-tracking must be watched and corrected (even by recalculation of the path). That is what architects are for.