When Public Agencies are Too Big to Fix Society's Problems... Collaborate with Solution Architects

What is a solution architect? In this context, a solution architect is any person with skills, knowledge, and methods to solve complex problems for organizations. The solution architect must often deal with what we called STEEPLED external influencers. The acronym STEEPLED stands for the following:

• Social

• Technical

• Economic

• Environmental

• Political

• Legal

• Ethical

• Demographic

Challenges of a Solution Architect: Considering all these factors makes your head hurt, huh? How can anyone person address all of these highly specialized areas of expertise? The answer is, on one person can. Thus, the solution architect does not have all of the answers. However, they know how to find all the experts with pieces of the answers. Then, the Solution Architect stitches the parts of the answer together to develop a total solution. It requires the solution architect to work with other experts to integrate their ideas and insights into a holistic solution. The catch is that the comprehensive solution must solve those complex problems that inhibit organizations' ability to achieve some desired goal or benefits.

Roles of a Solution Architect: The People’s Solution Architect is someone that pulls together other talented people with specialized experience and knowledge and applies those problem-solving skills to eliminate problems that affect communities or the larger society. The process includes the art and science of weaving the diverse, and sometimes, conflicting views into a complete solution. Ultimately, it makes better the lives of one or more members of the community.

The benefit of a Solution Architect: The people’s solution architects pull together governments, citizens, and experts from a variety of fields to solve our social problems in ways that are mutually beneficial to most stakeholders.