We have been going through a slow process of reviewing and refreshing our skills and capabilities within our Architectural team both in terms of what skills exist, and the necessary skill sets that need to be cultivated.

The EA capabilities views such as the Oracle one below which has been drawn from Oracle’s reference model (ITSO) can be used to aide determining what technical capabilities are needed in the solution space. But could also be used to support the determination of skills needs within an organisation in both breadth and to an extent depth.

Where the breadth equates to skills for all the tools mapped onto the technical capability model (ideally validated by mapping the technical capabilities to business capability model to establish utilisation). That mapping also informs the skills depth based on the number of times anyone technical capability is mapped to the business model.

This can be taken further through the use of value chains in the business domain you can determine which capabilities need to be focused on, therefore what technical capabilities and potential skills development are of most value to your organisation.

So what starts out as an abstract business activity, quickly delivers technical domain value. What is ‘fun’ is that as a Technical EA I can use the work from my business colleagues to make a compelling argument for training budget.

Useful links:

• http://timreview.ca/article/802
• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/entarch/itso-165161.html
• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/entarch/oracle-ra-integration-r3-0-176700.pdf 
• http://enterprisearchitects.com/getting-started-with-a-capability-model/ 
• http://www.aprocessgroup.com/myapg/architecture/ea-value-chain-aea-webinar-1/