What comes into your mind when you think about the solution architect in an agile model? There are many myths, such as thinking that the solution architecture is a very complex activity, and with agile you will be asked to submit your design right away or in the next sprint cycle. Another myth is that the agile architecture will not be robust to such architecture design and development, that testing cannot be possible, and so on.
Agile architecture is about designing decoupled and extendable interfaces. A solution architect in an agile environment needs to follow an iterative re-architect concept by inspecting and adapting the approach. It's about choosing the right solution for enterprises, communicating well, taking continuous feedback, and modeling in an agile way. The development team needs a solid foundation and the ability to adapt to changing requirements; they need guidance and mentoring from a solution architecture.
The foundation of the agile architecture should be reducing the cost of changes, reducing unnecessary requirements by challenging them, and creating a framework to reverse incorrect requirements rapidly. The Agile architect builds prototypes to minimize risk and plans for change by understanding them. They design the prototype while balancing the needs of all stakeholders and creating a loosely coupled architecture that can easily integrate with other modules. You will learn more about various loosely coupled architecture patterns in Chapter 6, Solution Architecture Design Patterns.