Stakeholders could be anyone who has a direct or indirect interest in the project. As well as the customer and user, it may also be the development team, sales, marketing, infrastructure, network, support team, or the project funding group.
Stakeholders could be internal or external to the project. Internal stakeholders include the project team, sponsors, employees, and senior management. External stakeholders include customers, suppliers, vendors, partners, shareholders, auditors, and the government.
Often, stakeholders have a different understanding of the same business problem as per their context; for example, a developer may look at a business requirement from a coding perspective, while an auditor may look at it from a compliance and security perspective. A solution architect needs to work with all technical and non-technical stakeholders.
They possess excellent communication skills and negotiation techniques, which help them to find out the optimal path for a solution while keeping everyone on board. A solution architect works as a liaison between technical and non-technical resources and fills the communication gap. Often, those communication gaps between a businessperson and the technical team become a reason for failure. The businessperson tries to look at things from more of a feature and functionality perspective, while the development team strives to build a more technically compatible solution, which may sometimes lean toward the non-functional side of the project.
The solution architect needs to make sure both teams are on the same page and that the suggested features are also technically compatible. They mentor and guide the technical team as required and put their perspective into simple language that everyone can understand.