Our custom software development shop is generally divided into three departments.

1. Business analysis

-Client management
-System functional design
-Project management

2. Programming

-Technical design
-Production programming
-Programmer testing

3. QA / DBA

-Test plan development
-Test execution
-Bug reporting and fix verification
-Data manipulation and population

Generally I define solution design as that creative process of leaping from the gathered requirements and pain points to a paradigm-changing
solution that really does introduce excellent software automation into manual processes. This can mean challenging fundamental work flows,
or designing work-reducing user interfaces, or recognizing useless steps in a process and streamlining it, or recognizing additional
human tasks in a process that weren’t mentioned in the requirements but that could be turned into automated software tasks, etc. etc.

It’s both an analytical and a creative skill.

As I’ve tried to expand my team I’ve encountered a lot of folks in the Business Analyst position who are good at process documentation and
meeting facilitation and specifying what’s asked of them; however, the real intuitive leaps that add substantial value to a process - the
true solution design - is hard to come by and often is really unrecognized as an essential skill.

I frequently probe for who was doing the true solution design when I’m doing interviews of many positions, and it seems that the true
solution design can come from a lot of disciplines.

Sometimes it’s a gifted technical resource.
Sometimes it’s the BA.
In product companies it’s often the “product manager”.
In consulting situations it can often be the client-side subject
matter expert.

Recently, I’ve begun nosing around the idea of adding a separate project management position. I’ve conceptualized this as an inward
facing position (or positions) responsible for:

Resource allocation

-Process discipline
-Budget monitoring
-Resource planning (when to get more)
-Project progress reporting

As I’ve conducted interviews for this position, I’ve found a fair number of “project managers” who aren’t pure play project management.
Instead they seem to be solution designers with top level project success responsibility. They do some managing of the project, but
also spend time delivering functional vision to the business analysts and programmers.

I would have expected that the rational place for solution design would be with the business analyst because they have the closest
relationship to the client and therefore the driving needs for the system. Instead the business analyst often seems like an execution
layer for requirements gathering and specification writing that operates at the direction of a solution designer - and that solution
designer could come from anywhere.

So my question to the group is - who does YOUR solution design and why is THAT particular job title the best place for those skills?

And what has your hit rate been with hiring more solution designers within that job title?

Thanks!