Providing clarity
There is no good velocity without clarity. Engineering teams and stakeholders need a good understanding of the current ecosystem and future technical direction to work efficiently.
Architects play a crucial role in:
- analyzing both the "big picture" and key elements of individual systems
- designing the desired future state
- efficiently communicating both the current and future state to others
Although it may boost one's ego, it is not ideal for the company to become the local Yoda:
Efficient communication involves creating useful artifacts that anyone in the organization can refer to at any time, without needing someone to explain the basics.
By basics, I mean things like the systems landscape, available APIs, the technology stack in use, and at least high-level deployment diagrams. Information about these elements should be easily accessible to involved teams and stakeholders. Otherwise, a lot of time will be wasted across the organization trying to answer basic questions about the architecture.
Architects do not necessarily need to create the documentation themselves, but they should feel accountable for ensuring that such documentation is available and that there is a culture of sharing useful information needed by others.