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Enterprise Architecture for the Internet of Things

There’s a tipping point with any new concept. The point where an idea surpasses being just a ‘fad’, or another ‘buzzword’ and becomes rooted within a culture or society.

With the estimated number of connected devices at 5 billion, and is projected to grow to over 30 billion by 2020, the Internet of Things has already surpassed its tipping point and is clearly here to stay.

The leading analysts have championed IoT for a while, with Mike Walker (Gartner analyst) indicating its impression on industries would be great, saying that, “Organizations must understand the profound impact new sources of information will have.”

Yet, even considering the already colossal figures, the backgrounded nature of the Internet of Things means it isn’t yet a household term. Between the traditional smartphones, tablets, computers, and less traditional thermostats, smart bulbs, and other devices, most consumers are invested into the Internet of Things without actively acknowledging it.

It’s possible that businesses have struggled to make the most out of IoT for similar reasons.

It’s fundamentally unobtrusive nature has left some businesses slow to adopt the strategy as it’s value isn’t necessarily obvious. However, those with insider knowledge understand its potential – especially when paired with big data.

Current estimates infer IoT will add between $10 trillion and $15 trillion to the global GDP, as businesses benefit from more and more smart devices, increasing the density of connections between people, devices and interconnectivity between the two. Essentially, every new connection is a new selling, or data mining opportunity.

That said, as with big data, IoT can be a meaningless endeavor without the proper strategy in place to capitalize on it, and the starting point for that strategy, should be Enterprise Architecture.

Enterprise architecture

Enterprise Architecture in IoT

Enterprise architecture can help businesses get more out of IoT.

Although the IoT refers to connected devices, in practice, the information from the devices in question is actually siloed. Although still of use to business, this siloed and fragmented information doesn’t provide the level of insight needed to justify heavy resource investment in an IoT strategy.

To really make the most out of IoT, the connections between the devices must be uncovered, and the walls separating them brought down.

This is where Enterprise Architecture comes into play. EA can leverage the interconnectivity of smart devices, grouping them together to measure certain data, or to form new business models and uses. Mike Walker labeled this the shift from thinking of IoT, ‘things’ to ‘compositions’.

Enterprise Architecture can also help identify which parts of the data are most relevant, in order for an organization to make better informed opinions.

On this, Mike Walker said: “In establishing a business competency centre, enterprise architects need to determine the potential impact, both positive and negative, of IoT technologies and then create actionable deliverables that can define which business opportunities should be pursued as result.”

Without proper structure, the sheer quantity of data that IoT can produce can be overwhelming, and the most useful information can be lost in the cluster.

All this considered, as the number of connected devices climbs, Enterprise Architecture and architect’s will find new life breathed into the discipline, as businesses look to leverage the services to guide their IoT strategies.

“Enterprise architects have a great opportunity to position themselves at the heart of digital businesses,” said, Mike Walker. “This could take the form of establishing a business competency centre that explores how the IoT can create innovative breakthroughs for the organization’s business models, products and services through rapid experimentation.”

He went on to say, “Enterprise architects are best positioned to discuss and enable the most lucrative opportunities in partnership with business unit and IT leaders. At the same time, they must work with chief data officers and security officers to structure this data in a way that mitigates the worst risks of pursuing these opportunities.”

The Definitive Guide to Enterprise Architecture - EA for IoT

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Agile Enterprise Architecture for Big Data

Big Data is a huge enabler for business. It provides business leaders and analysts with a depth of information and insight that had previously been impossible to understand.

But for many businesses, this depth isn’t always as inviting as one might hope and so the scope of big data, often becomes a catch 22. Big data’s greatest asset – namely, masses of information – can easily become it’s biggest challenge. Without proper direction, useful information in big data is actually more barren than its name suggests.

Yes, there is a lot of information there, but without the proper approach, sifting through the useful information can undo much of the productivity big data seeks to improve.

This is where Enterprise Architecture comes in …

Enterprise Architecture (EA) helps organizations identify and capitalize on new business opportunities uncovered by this new influx of information, by acting as the guiding rope for the strategic changes required to handle it. EA helps facilitate big data processing, and helps uncover and prioritize exactly which data can benefit the organization.

Enterprise Architecture has already changed a lot over the last decade or so, and architects are now expected to be far more business outcome orientated, and meet disruptions and opportunities head on, rather than acting primarily on optimization and standardization.

With big data, the role of Enterprise Architecture needs revising again. Too much happens too quickly for the old idea of Enterprise Architecture, one that involves carefully perfecting projects and pouring over detail, to still apply. Big data benefits from the “Just Enough” and “Just in Time” approach to EA, and that’s why …

Big Data requires an Agile approach

Big Data is a product of the mass information, digital business age, whereby opportunities are more plentiful, but have much smaller windows in which they can be capitalized upon.

The constantly changing landscape of modern business is directly reflected in big data and EAs will often have to react in real-time as the variables that dictate the data continue to evolve.

David Newman, research vice president at Gartner, spoke on this very topic. “For the EA practitioner, the balance shifts from a focus on optimization and standardization within the organization, to lightweight approaches,” he said.

“Big data disrupts traditional information architectures — from a focus on data warehousing (data storage and compression) toward data pooling (flows, links, and information shareability). In the age of big data, the task for the EA practitioner is clear: Design business outcomes that exploit big data opportunities inside and outside the organization.”

Therefore, just having an Enterprise Architecture initiative isn’t necessarily enough to properly leverage big data. EAs that are yet to focus on agility won’t find as much success as those that have.

One of the key best practices in transitioning to a more Agile EA initiative, and maintaining this Agility is heavily linked with the perception of EA itself. To truly be effective as an agile arm of the business that meets change and disruption head on, EA must step up from building business and IT architecture models to deliver business focused outcomes.

This is something that analysts and influencers all seem to agree on, as many have championed the business outcome approach to Enterprise Architecture now, for some time.

This shift from IT-system focus to business focus, arguably happened when the concept of a Vanguard Enterprise Architect was introduced, making a clear distinction between Foundational EA (responsible for ensuring “business as usual”) and the innovation focussed Vanguard EA.

In fact, Forrester even placed “assisting the business in opportunity recognition” at number one, in their list of ways enterprise architects lead their organization’s thinking.

One way in which Enterprise Architecture can seek to properly leverage big data to recognize new opportunities is by using a business capability map. Business capability maps can make it far easier to extract the relevant data, when the raw data itself is too large to effectively digest.

Enterprise Architecture can also indicate when an organization’s own data isn’t quite big enough. Often, organizations find themselves held back by inter-departmental walls and silos. Enterprise Architecture can help point out these areas where data sharing is lacking, and work on bridging the gap.

This makes the data provided in big data far more complete, and in turn, more useful in the decision making process.

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Why Enterprise Architecture Agility is Becoming Increasingly Important

The importance of enterprise architecture agility is growing at a rapid pace.

Technology has made us faster. In the last century, we’ve found ways to travel faster, exchange information faster, and most importantly – innovate faster. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that perhaps we’ve entered an age where we innovate too quickly.

Think about it – how can any company aim for longevity when the next industry revolutionizing innovation is just around the corner. And it seems as if there’s a new one every other month.

Start-ups like Uber, Deliveroo and others have already reshaped their respective industries and largely without much – if any at all – forewarning. These disruptions to the market can rarely be planned for. Much of this is down to the nature of the internet and how quickly a message can spread.

Now that more and more products are being offered in the form of software, and within that, more and more of those being SaaS offerings, it’s not hard to imagine yet another uptick in the speed in which the market changes and evolves.

This is a particularly important area of focus for Enterprise Architects, as they are largely going to be responsible for implementing and integrating these new technologies. And with the evolution of Enterprise Architecture itself, from fringe support IT role to a forward thinking source of innovation, EA’s will even be responsible for sourcing new tech, predicting market trends, and generally operating with the businesses future-state in mind, in order to stay ahead of the curve.

So how do you account for rapid and unforeseen changes in strategic planning?

Well, the short answer is that you don’t. Realistically, you can’t plan for something if you don’t know…

  1. What’s coming
  2. When it’s coming

Businesses must instead prepare to react. This is what’s at the core of “being agile”, – a business mantra and way of operating that has been championed by many of the leading analysts, including Gartner, Forrester and others for a number of years now.

The point in being agile is understanding that you’re not always going to be ahead of the curve. This is because it’s impossible to constantly live “outside the box”. Eventually, an outside of the box idea becomes the box, and it takes a new outsider to really pivot the market.

Agility then, is about making sure that when disruptions occur, you’re not only ready to change course (or in some extreme cases, radically pivot), you’re also ready to turn disruption into opportunity.

What does agility mean to Enterprise Architecture?

In Enterprise Architecture, agility is mainly about reducing time to markets and making the practice more efficient.

There are a number of ways in which this can be achieved. Some relate to how EA is done, and some relate to how EA is perceived by the wider business.

Firstly, when it comes to doing EA, one best practice is the “just enough” mantra. Just enough Enterprise Architecture aims to avoid the issues that can plague an EA initiative due to over analysis.

Enterprise Architecture is one of those disciplines where it could be argued that the work is never done – but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a time to stop and move on. Instead of documenting every inch and detail of an organization, EAs should instead aim to to deliver just enough to support the desired business outcomes.

A failure to implement just enough Enterprise Architecture plays a huge part in an organization’s failings in staying agile. It takes the EAs focus away from the businesses future-state, and instead, bogs them down with the past and current.

Of course, it’s vital for an EA to understand a business’s current capabilities, but looking forward is a huge part of the balance that makes a successful Enterprise Architecture effort.

If you feel your Enterprise Architecture efforts get bogged down with “analysis paralysis,” you should try using a goal based decision process. This keeps a focus on what needs to be built and by when.

Another reason an Enterprise Architecture department might be struggling to increase agility is the lack of a purpose built EA tool. As Enterprise Architecture has traditionally been quite expensive to get off the ground – with installation, upkeep and other costs – many businesses have resorted to using a hodgepodge of not-for-purpose Office Tools.

It’s a viable option at first, but as the Enterprise Architecture grows, these guerrilla Enterprise Architecture efforts often become increasingly difficult to manage as the architecture’s documentation spills across multiple files that can be exclusive to multiple people.

A purpose built EA tool with a strong focus on collaboration means that Enterprise Architects can share and collaborate on work directly within the tool. It also makes the architecture as a whole far easier to navigate and present to the wider business as it’s all kept within the same programme.

The improved capabilities in collaboration can also help with EA’s perception in the wider business. Getting stakeholders more involved in the EA makes its purpose and value far more clear.

This will lead to an environment where EA and the results it produces are treated with more dignity and trust, aiding in increasing agility by removing some of the bureaucratic hurdles faced before.

It’s now easier than ever to kickstart an Enterprise Architecture initiative with an EA tool. SaaS offerings with staggered license types especially, can be an in for businesses starting at Level 0 on the EA maturity model. Businesses no longer need to worry about the massive up front cost, and with the option to buy more licenses, the tool can scale with the EA initiative as it develops.

enterprise architecture business process

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The Cloud Needs a New Type of Enterprise Architect

The role and responsibilities of Enterprise Architect’s have already changed so much since the practice’s introduction. It’s practitioners have already had to adjust focus to accommodate the increasingly digital business focused market.

In addition to this, the realigning of IT from fringe, support role, to a core business unit has demanded a more forward thinking, innovative approach from them, too. We’re now in a new critical phase in Enterprise Architecture’s evolution, as cloud systems are becoming increasingly more commonplace.

The Cloud Needs a New Type of Enterprise Architect

Enterprise Architecture’s role in the Cloud

Thanks to a boom in web connectivity, reliability and availability, many business leaders and decision makers are now turning to the cloud as a means of delivering new tech.

The benefits to cost and speed of implementation are a huge selling point for the model and are a huge factor in its success. But arguably, the most important factor is the increasing need for agility.

Digital business has introduced a climate in which new tech innovations can catch on incredibly quickly, leading to a market in a constant state of change. This is why agility in business and IT has been a talking point of leading analysts – including Gartner – for a number of years now, and increasing agility is a goal that often ranks highly on yearly CIO agendas.

Cloud based systems are a great asset in achieving this goal of increasing agility.  A new, radical change in the market might require a rapid change in strategy, and the market won’t wait for businesses to source, fund and install new systems.

If need be, a subscription based SaaS model need only be swapped out for another, or in a case of expanding on current practices, more licenses can be acquired. This also goes a long way in helping businesses manage the amount of shelfware they have accrued, as SaaS models are only paid for, for as long as they are needed.

Considering the benefits of this, Enterprise Architects will need to familiarize themselves with the cloud, and those that specialize in it are bound to see an increased demand in their skill set.

As before, Enterprise Architects will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of such tech, ensuring it’s aligned with the business’ current systems and goals. But oftentimes, they’ll also be responsible for informing and educating the wider business on how exactly these new systems will fit. Hence, why some analysts are making the argument that Enterprise Architects should act as a direct advisory role to the CIO, and in some cases, start operating more like a management consultancy practice.

The Cloud’s role in Enterprise Architecture

SaaS models are even revitalizing Enterprise Architecture itself.

For example, CloudCore leverages the cloud to host a bundled Data Modeling and Enterprise Architecture offering, in one solution.

Businesses that may have found themselves priced out of EA before, due to high installation costs, or reluctance to invest heavily if EA is only needed for a fixed term project, are no longer excluded either.

The scalability of the model means that SaaS based Enterprise Architecture tools are a viable option for businesses at all stages of maturity. For example, a business at Level 0, or Level 1 of Gartner’s Enterprise Architecture maturity model (shown below) might have been taking a make shift approach to EA. Repurposing tools that are typically readily available to most businesses such as the Office Suite.

Enterprise Architecture Maturity Model
The Gartner Enterprise Architecture Maturity Model

A business in this position is likely to have serious reservations about investing heavily in EA without a solid idea of its return on investment. In this case, a business will likely want to start small and mature the practice as they go. SaaS licensing options go a long way to enabling this thanks to the pay for what you need model, and the ability and ease of trialing the software before committing.

Enterprise-Architecture-tools-as-a-Service also benefit from increased collaborative capabilities thanks to the online, inherently connected nature of the software. Users can utilize the cloud to collaborate directly within the tool, benefiting from real time updates and the ability to make/suggest changes to diagrams from anywhere with an online connection.

It can also make encouraging investment and stakeholder buy-in to EA much easier. This is because the aforementioned parties can be involved much more directly with the Enterprise’s Architecture, and the EA tool itself.

Staggered licenses can account for “contributor” and “reviewer” permissions, allowing people that don’t necessarily need to be involved with the meta-data and repository, to still contribute to EA by either building diagrams or leaving feedback. This hands on involvement makes EA a far easier sell, as the relevant parties can see the value first hand.

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Enterprise Architecture as a Management Consultancy Practice

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has a unique position in the organization. The overview of connected systems, capabilities, departments and business assets, and internal and external ecosystem influences essentially gives Architects a view of the whole living organization from above.

The practice of EA has been around for some time, but the insight this perspective can provide has only been capitalized on in recent years. This is largely down today’s broader scope of what EA now encompasses, the shift into digital business, and the increasingly interconnected environment digital business demands.

This new view and way of doing business opens up a new type of Enterprise Architecture.

Enterprise Architecture is no longer just concerned with IT-related planning, maintaining and cost cutting. Now EAs are responsible for driving transformation, enabling growth and highlighting new business avenues and innovating. This means that the work done by EAs, has a huge influence on a company’s strategy execution.

We’ve already written about how EA is in a great position to advise the CIO, but considering the above, we could argue that EA can act as an organization’s own internal Management Consultancy.

Enterprise Architecture as a Management Consulting Practice

Enterprise Architecture as Management Consultancy

Gartner have spoken for a while about Business Outcome driven EA. The new take on the EA discipline aims to help Enterprise Architecture showcase its value more effectively.

It’s arguably this perspective on EA that makes it such a good fit as Management Consulting. To be Business Outcome orientated, EA’s need to have a solid understanding of company direction, and the systems, processes and people required to steer the business to the next level. They also need to be value driven, and able to show the value of the initiative to C-level management, line managers, stakeholders and other relevant parties.

One great way to begin envisioning Enterprise Architecture as a source of Management Consultancy is to consider the purpose of the two disciplines. The Management Consultancies Association (or the MCA), describe their practice as “the practice of creating value for organizations, through improved performance, achieved by providing objective advice and implementing business solutions.” The MCA goes on to say that, “management consultants help take organizations further than they would go on their own.”

From this definition alone, we can already start to see how Enterprise Architecture and Management Consultancy could be intertwined. Both disciplines are focused on interpreting strategic objectives, delivering increased value, improving performance and advising the business as to how to reach its goals.

Not only does this take on Enterprise Architecture help the business as a whole, it can also serve to help the Enterprise Architects themselves.

To be effective in Management Consultancy, EA must…

Now that we’ve made the case as to why Enterprise Architecture could act like a form of  Management Consultancy, it’s important to look at how. Not every Enterprise Architecture initiative is ready for this renewed take on EA, but it could be said that any EA practice looking to move through the levels of EA maturity, could make reaching this level a priority.

The best practices that should be in place to successfully leverage EA as a form of Management Consultancy are:

  • Agility
  • A business outcome focus
  • A enterprise-wide recognition (not just IT)

Essentially, these best practices are the core of any good Enterprise Architecture initiative, but arguably, any good EA initiative is in a good position to operate as a form of Management Consultancy.

Most architects will find themselves working to deliver agility and business-outcomes over time through review and gradual improvement. In fact, both increasing agility, and maintaining/improving a business outcome focus are often placed high on the CIO agenda.

Getting “enterprise-wide recognition” is arguably a little more complicated.

This requires a change in mindset and culture around the business, and success here is often only achieved through the demonstration of value. One way to help EA deliver Management Consultancy, is to introduce the concept gradually.

As we’ve covered before, C-Level management can help the business recognize the importance of EA more readily by giving them a more regular seat at the top table. EAs would start this transition with an advisory role to the CIO, before taking on responsibilities such as communicating strategy and capablities in the CIOs absence.

What can we do to speed up the process?

As alluded to above, for EA to be taken seriously as a the companies own management consultancy, the EA practice must be delivering business outcomes. This means, at a minimum, doing Enterprise Architecture with the right tools and suitable frameworks so positive results can be repeated.

Companies still immature or doing ad-hoc EA work, often utilizing the Microsoft Office tools won’t succeed here. The results of this kind of EA are too hard to replicate, and often too unorganized to effectively share and present.

The good news is, not all Enterprise Architecture tools require the same level of colossal investment we’ve come to know in the past. SaaS and tiered-license options, for example, mean smaller organizations can start maturing their Enterprise Architecture practice.

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Overcoming Teething Problems in Enterprise Architecture

Historically, the teething problems in enterprise architecture have prevented it from realising its full potential. However, the uptick in data-driven business has made the practice essential, meaning organizations are looking for an enterprise architecture approach that works best for them.

Although they might not always be immediately obvious to the outsider, the value of Enterprise Architects to EAs and even many CIOs is clear. The practice has long been one of the best drivers of business transformation, and IT/business alignment.

Yet over the years, a number of studies indicate hurdles in the early stages of Enterprise Architecture maturity that can stop businesses progressing further with the scheme.

Take Gartner for example. In a 2007 survey from the world renowned tech analyst, Gartner found that 40% of Enterprise Architecture initiatives would be stopped. A later survey (2015) indicates at least a degree of accuracy in the former, as it showed 70% of businesses were looking to either start, or restart an Enterprise Architecture programme.

It seems as if, although businesses are aware of the advantages of an EA practice, actually introducing one can be difficult.

With that said, this blog will covers things to consider when implementing an EA practice to avoid the historical problems in enterprise architecture initiatives and ensure it’s success going forward.

Problems in Enterprise Architecture: EA Needs Time

Businesses that adopt EA on a whim – in that they know they should be doing in EA, but don’t fully understand why – will likely run into this issue.

We must understand that Enterprise Architecture is far from an overnight fix. In fact, it’s the polar opposite. Although EA might highlight areas where overnight and radical change could benefit a business, the initiative itself is a constant and gradual effort in working to align business and IT, aid in strategic planning, and improve processes.

As time goes on, the degree to which these efforts can positively affect the business will also increase, as the EA practice becomes more mature. The added capabilities of EA are indicated in Gartner’s maturity model shown below.

Teething Problems in Enterprise Architecture: EA Maturity Model

This is important for two reasons. Firstly, a maturing Enterprise Architecture practice implies business growth, and so more EA has to be done in order to cope, as there is  more to manage.

Secondly, maturing in EA enables businesses to do a different kind of Enterprise Architecture. The typical, Foundational EA tasks – the one’s we refer to as keeping the lights on – will still be carried out. However, a more mature Enterprise Architecture practice can start using EA more aggressively, actioning what is known as Vanguard Enterprise Architecture Enterprise Architecture.

This kind of EA is more proactive, and it’s practitioners focus more on identifying opportunities and disruptions. This is the EA largely responsible for pushing business transformation and innovation, and so their results often have more lucrative, tangible results.

Most practices that abandon EA, do so without moving too far along the maturity model and so in most cases, are only doing entry level, Foundational Enterprise Architecture.

Problems in Enterprise Architecture: EA Needs Attention

Much of EA consists of strategic planning. Thanks to the practice’s macrocosmic (top down) view of the organization, and business wide responsibility, the planning carried out by EA’s can affect the business as a whole. When dealing with change of this nature, what is implemented cannot be started and left to integrate on its own. This sort of radical change needs to be guided and supervised.

This is why if a business is going to take on EA, they need to think about the EAs wider role in the organization. Who should they report to, who should report to them etc.

Many people make the case that EAs should report directly to the CIO, and in fact, hold an advisory role to the CIO as well. Gartner analyst, Brian Burke echoes this sentiment, stating: “We’ve witnessed a change in mind-set, execution and delivery of EA. The value of EA is not in simply ‘doing EA’, but rather in how it can help evolve the business and enable senior executives to respond to business threats and opportunities.”

Therefore, just implementing the scheme isn’t enough. It needs aftercare. This is why EAs should work closely with CIOs, and the benefits of this come two-fold. On one side, the CIO gains a valuable asset in having an adviser with perhaps the most broad, top down view of the organization and its structure, in the business. On the other, the Enterprise Architect has a role more closely aligned with the top table, and can exercise more pull in decision making.

This relationship, and the extra attention to EA it provides could be the difference between success in EA, and an amassment of half started projects and eventual lapse in investment.

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Enterprise Architecture’s Economic Value

In the past, the economic value of enterprise architecture has been hard to show.

Yearly surveys routinely indicate a need for enterprise architecture (EA). CIOs often list implementing or improving an EA initiative as a top priority. Despite their position at the “top table”, CIOs are still expected to justify their plans to invest in EA (or elsewhere), based on the plan’s expected effectiveness.

In theory, the benefits of enterprise architecture should justify themselves. But the niche and expert nature of the practice means the value doesn’t always translate well to those outside of the immediate stakeholder community.

In this case, CIOs, Chief Architects, EAs and the like, need to show the economic value of enterprise architecture. But how?

The Economic Value of Enterprise Architecture

The Economic Value of Enterprise Architecture

The need for enterprise architecture can be summed up by two of its main goals – aligning the business and its operations with IT, and bridging the gap between the organization’s current state, and its desired future state.

The economic value of enterprise architecture often comes as a result of nearing the ideal state of these two goals. I say nearing, as Enterprise Architecture initiatives rarely achieve perfect alignment. The two goals work against each other in this regard – success in bridging the current/future gap, creates a constantly changing landscape, and business/IT alignment has to be adjusted accordingly.

With this in mind, it could be said that the economic value of enterprise architecture is achieved in the long term, as opposed to the shorter term. That said, there are a number of markers of success that can be achieved along the way – each providing clear and tangible benefits to the organization that undoubtedly hold economic value of their own merit.

There are a number of indicators of success within EA that indicate the initiative’s economic value. Four core indicators come in the form of improving strategic planning, communication and risk evaluation, and tactical advancements. These markers can be seen as best practices in order to work towards, to fufil the overall goal of making an EA initiative an economic success.

Improving Strategic Planning

Enterprise architecture is often seen as the bridge between defining a strategy and its implementation – hence one of EAs main goals being to bridge the gap between the business’ current state, and its future.

EA adds a much needed dimension of transparency to strategy implementation. It’s often the guiding rope for implementing strategy that will affect the whole business. Because different business departments often work in silos that aren’t all completely in sync, new initiatives can suffer from a lack of foresight and lead to disparity and disconnections in data and ideas.

Enterprise architecture works as a framework to ensure no department/silo is overlooked, and that with the new strategy, each separate business arm is still working towards the same goal.

Bettering Communication

Enterprise architecture is arguably concerned with strategic planning, first and foremost. But there will always come a time when that strategy has to be communicated to the wider business for it to be successfully implemented.

The problem most businesses will find here, is that due to the holistic, top down, and all encompassing perspective EA has on the business, and the universal/inter-departmental changes any strategy EAs suggest can cause.

This is where the right enterprise architecture tool is important. Rather than just the actioning of enterprise architecture itself.

The right enterprise architecture tool can enable the various stakeholders relevant to a proposed scheme, to actually collaborate on the project to ensure the strategy works in the best interest of all parties.

In the past, enterprise architecture has been deemed as an “ivory tower” profession, catering only to the expert. This is still true to some extent, especially when talking about back end data and the repository. However, that doesn’t mean the results at the front end aren’t useful to non Enterprise Architects.

The right tool can enable true collaboration (in tool, not just reports and feedback which can slow down the process) and therefore be a great asset to line managers, C-Level executives and others as they can be a more critical part of the planning process.

All in all, this facilitating of true collaboration should improve the communication and coordination of strategy implementation, and lead to less false starts, wrong turns and a return on investment that’s both faster and more fruitful.

Tactical Improvements

As well as improving the strategic planning process, enterprise architecture plays a huge role in improving processes overall. By taking a look into what is aligned, and what isn’t, EAs can uncover areas of redundancies – where two separate processes are being actioned when they could be merged into one.

There are many examples of this across varying sectors, especially when an organization has been void of EA until now, or is on the lower end of EA maturity. These businesses tend to be less aligned and so suffer from the issues typical to such situations. These issues can range from a non standardized practice for keeping and labeling data, leading to duplication and corruption, to different departments holding separate licenses for software that does essentially the same thing.

By identifying these discrepancies, enterprise architects can save an organization both time and money. Both of which hold clear economic value.

Taking Better Risks

Modern enterprise architecture is often seen as a two headed coin. One side, the Foundational side, deals with the ‘legacy’ IT-based tasks – what we refer to as keeping the lights on, keeping costs down etc. The tactical value of enterprise architecture resonates most vibrantly here.

Vanguard enterprise architecture is the other side of this coin. This more modern take on enterprise architecture was introduced to reflect ITs shift from a solely support based domain, to a role more central to the business.

Vanguard EAs are the forward thinkers, more concerned with innovating, and bridging current and future gaps in technology, than the alignment in the present. In this regard, enterprise architecture becomes a fantastic tool for evaluating risk.

Although evaluating risk can never be seen as an exact science, vanguard EAs are invaluable in that they can help indicate what strategies should, or should not be pursued based on their potential value to the business, and the costs it could take to implement them.

The Business Capability Model, for example, can indicate what a business is already suited to achieve. Therefore, they can be used to point out strategies the business might be able to implement more readily.

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5 Things You Should Know About Big Data Enterprise Architecture

Big Data has changed the way in which organizations understand and make use of the growing volume, velocity, variety and value of enterprise data. Any company, whether large or small, can take steps to analyze and make use of the disparate information it has access to, speeding up and increasing focus on initiatives that help drive and grow the company.

With the correct approach, enterprise architecture helps the business target the right market activities and fine tune marketing, sales and business operations. In fact, almost any business transformation initiative can be addressed by utilizing Big Data techniques. Techniques that can help enterprise architects ensure alignment with the business and maximize return on investment.

Architects typically already know the business capabilities they need to deliver and have a roadmap outlining the applications, technology, people, processes and resources needed to accomplish it. Big Data is different in that it enables architects to follow ideas where the outcome isn’t clear, and the data is often wont to trigger new questions or ideas.

A more agile approach to architecture development is required to handle this than what many organizations have in place today, to allow the organization to react and respond where needed to capitalize on opportunities when they arise.

With that in mind, here’s 5 key things you should know about Big Data Enterprise Architecture.

Big Data Enterprise Architecture in Digital Transformation and Business Outcomes

Digital Transformation is about businesses embracing today’s culture and process change oriented around the use of technology, whilst remaining focused on customer demands, gaining competitive advantage and growing revenues and profits.

By focusing on desired business outcomes, companies can target specific initiatives that are likely to yield high returns or deliver greatest business value based on digital adoption. Big Data may be incorporated into business strategies to help drive meaningful strategic adjustments that minimize costs and maximize results.

As more businesses become digitized, the amount and complexity of enterprise data grows, and so making use of it to better understand your customers, employees, operations, and how your products and services are performing has never been more challenging or essential. Some ability to understand and analyze Big Data can help identify the opportunities to reduce costs, serve customers better, or eliminate risks across the architecture of the enterprise.

In fact, it could be said that without any element of Big Data analysis, it’s hard to do digital transformation at all.

Enterprise Architecture Makes Big Data Easier to Digest

CRM and ERP tools are a hive of useful data. Enterprise Architects can use this data to highlight areas of opportunity and potential disruption.

Alongside this, the rise of social media has uncovered a new data goldmine, and online tools like Google Analytics provide deep insight into the consumer. Of course, this is implied by the term “Big Data”.

That said, businesses won’t find all of the data useful at any given time. The organization’s current goals and objectives should influence which parts of the data to hone in on in order to make things more manageable.

An Enterprise Architecture tool supporting a view manager can help achieve this. Organizing the same data into different views in an instant can make finding the best data thread to pull, much easier. Essentially, a view manager streamlines data into customizable, and easily digestable representations that can be updated in real-time. This allows Enterprise Architects to make comparisons far more readily.

A best practice in this instance, is to use EA to sift through Big Data, and find one metric that holds a clear influence on reaching your desired outcome. From here, EAs can branch out and find other useful data sets that can be applied to ensure decisions are as well informed as possible.

This can help eliminate guesswork and save time and cost by avoiding trial and error Big Data work.

Big Data Isn’t Just for Big Business

It can be an easy assumption to make that Big Data is best left for Business Analysts, and the typically lager organizations where they’re employed. However, in the current business landscape, its possible for any business to drill down into Big Data by leveraging the various tools available on the market.

These tools can help find, structure and manipulate data, as well as present them to the wider organization in order to influence strategy.

In EA specifically, the tools available can help you gain a deep understanding of your current-state and past-state enterprise data activity, and therefore can be used to help understand trends and make projections that influence your future-state enterprise.

Reports of this nature go along way, for example, by indicating whether a specific Digital Transformation workstream is worth pursuing or not, as well as steering it once the target future-state has been agreed upon.

Big Data Can Help Position EAs in an Advisory Role

A key objective of Big Data is to surface new value from extensive data sets, and as an Enterprise Architect you should be prepared to advise your business and IT stakeholders on how its possible to leverage Big Data techniques to achieve their objectives.

We’ve talked before about how EAs could in fact, be best place to be a front line in advising the CIO, due to their holistic view of the organizations assets and potential.

To properly leverage Big Data to position yourself at the ‘big table’, EAs should recognize that every enterprise is unique with its own goals – the drivers for each company differ, and near-term and long-term goals can and do change over time.

By understanding the business goals, key challenges and business outcomes, Enterprise Architects can start to break Big Data down into insights that will drive success.

The use of SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time) based goals can allow you to have concrete criteria upon which to measure results and effectiveness.

Big Data EA and the Business Motivation Model

The business motivation model (BMM) in ArchiMate® can be used to describe the goals, drivers, assessments carried out, and stakeholders involved in decision making. It’s a way of putting factors of influence on the business in context, providing a language in which they can be discussed and used to better strategic planning.

An invaluable tool for Enterprise Architects and the wider business, the motivation model helps improve decision making by adding a structure and cohesion to the strategic planning process.

Most EAs agree that there is still work to be done in order to reach a perfect (or even near perfect) alignment between IT and the wider organization – something that CIOs across organizations are striving for. Much of the reason for this shortcoming, is a lack of effective communication.

The cohesion in planning achieved by a business motivation model, makes it far easier for plans to be communicated across departments and ensure everybody is working towards similar outcomes. This mutual approach is the driver behind this business and IT alignment.

The connection between the BMM, and Big Data Enterprise Architecture is simple. In short, Big Data provides additional and much needed context to build better informed BMMs. The more data you have surrounding a specific influencing factor, the more accurately you can predict the extent of said influencers, influence. Enterprise Architecture can help refine Big Data for this purpose, so analysts and other relevant parties can see a snapshot of only the relevant data, essentially cutting the fat.

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Justifying Enterprise Architecture Investment

The increased frequency in organizational disruption – thanks to the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and increased focus on digital business – has made Enterprise Architecture (EA) more integral to business than ever before.

EA is needed in order to steer through such disruption to not only limit any negative fallout, but to best capitalize on the disruption, and exploit opportunity, too.

Still, acquiring the necessary funding to invest in EA in order to mature the practice can often be difficult, with reports indicating 50% of clients sourcing a new EA tool are unsuccessful in gaining approval on the first attempt.

This is surprising considering how EA benefits the organization, and the importance placed on these benefits by business leaders. Benefits such as:

  • Faster time to markets
  • Increased agility, efficiency and effectiveness
  • Uptick in innovations in the organization’s structure
  • Better alignment of business and IT
  • Reduced costs in implementing innovations
  • Reduced risk

The Enterprise Architecture domain hasn’t helped itself in this regard. The expert nature of its function is fundamentally exclusive, rather than inclusive, and historically, EA tools have reflected this.

Pitching the right tool

Enterprise Architecture’s ivory tower perception has made pitching tools difficult, as it’s hard to convince a stakeholder/business leader/decision maker of the tool’s value if they don’t fully understand how the tool is applied.

Oftentimes, the best way to pitch an idea, is to demonstrate to the person how they would be involved in its implementation. Therefore, an EA tool should be both capable of carrying out the needs of the specialists, whilst still being open enough for stakeholders to be properly involved in both the decision to buy and the use of the tool going forward.

Traditionally, this hasn’t been possible as the learning curve for EA tools alienated non experts. Even people in the industry often found the user interfaces to be unwelcoming and difficult to navigate. However, as the world has become more digitally orientated, and UI design has improved, the desire to have an EA tool that works for Architects and the relevant stakeholders can now be realized.

Corso Agile Enterprise Architecture

There are tools capable of the same high end functionality as EA’s have come to expect, as well as being user friendly enough to enable collaboration between experts and non-experts alike.

If the tool you’re evaluating has a trial period, collaborating with said stakeholders and fellow team members right off the bat is a great way to demonstrate its potential.

Pitching the tool right

The business outcome approach to EA typically assumes a business is already doing some sort of recognized EA. However, the same ideas can be applied to the pitch.

Take ‘Just Enough‘ for example. A business outcome orientated take on Enterprise Architecture where EAs aim to do ‘just enough’ EA and avoid analysis paralysis, slowing down workflows and time to markets.

When pitching the need for EA investment, Enterprise Architects could apply this principle by showing, ‘Just Enough’. Meaning, instead of spending time talking about the tool’s back end data and repository to a stakeholder that won’t be involved in it, focus on showing the results the repository will be used for.

Stakeholders want to see how an Enterprise Architecture initiative will bring the organization closer to it’s desired business outcomes, but they’re not too worried about the specifications that will have it happen.

Focus on the cost savings; on the reduced time to markets; on the increased agility in the face of change and disruption, to name a few.

The idea behind this approach is that, if we can demonstrate the value the tool will bring to the business, how it brings that value will be less important.

Leverage Established Examples

By using already established examples of EA’s merit as a proof of concept, Architects can add credibility to the pitch, by showing the real world application and the results produced.

Although every organization’s Enterprise Architecture will be unique to them, demonstrating what an EA investment has done for others is still a viable tactic.

It’s likely that many businesses will desire similar outcomes, even if the environments in which those outcomes will be planned for and achieved are different.

Examples of Enterprise Architecture in practice and how it has helped/is helping the Enterprise Architect(s) in question can be found here and here.

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What Makes an Enterprise Architect?

The current push towards digital business and adoption in IoT has caused a revitalized demand of the Enterprise Architecture (EA) profession.

EA was often seen as a business arm of IT dedicated to support or “keeping the lights on”. However, a changing business landscape has meant architects are now expected to innovate, meet and navigate disruptions, and liaise with business leaders and decision makers.

Considering this evolved role, and the increasing demand for the profession, it’s worth taking a look at some of the most essential skills Enterprise Architects need to demonstrate.

An IT and Business Minded Approach

Speaking on the importance of Enterprise Architecture in modern organizations, and the domain having a business focus, Network World Editor, John Dix said: “The enterprise architect role today is becoming more critical because virtually every business project has a core IT component and companies need players involved that have a big picture view.”

“Organizations are constantly struggling with change and the enterprise architect role helps to ensure projects are mapped out with realistic goals and the infrastructure is there to support those goals now and in the future.”

One of the biggest changes to IT over the recent years has been its place within business. As IT in general has become absolutely essential to how most businesses operate, it now has to operate with a far more pronounced business emphasis.

A recent IDG and Network World led study indicates this is most certainly true for EAs. In it, 88% of all IT Architects (Enterprise, Solution, Infrastructure etc included) said they needed to communicate with both IT and business in mind, making sure their reports translated to those outside of IT, as well as in it.

The same percentage also expressed that mapping capabilities to business needs was a priority.

Leading tech analyst, Gartner have noticed a similar trend. In recent years, Gartner have stressed the importance of doing “Business Outcome driven EA,” and arguably, this new tack has been one of the factors helping the profession grow.

This is one of the main reasons Enterprise Architecture needs to shake its “ivory tower perception.” EA’s place in the business is far too centralized to be unapproachable by non-experts, and so Enterprise Architects who can successfully accommodate both fellow architects and stakeholders are invaluable.

Many EAs are already halfway there. They understand the importance of working alongside decision makers and stakeholders, but in some cases, just don’t have the right tools. In order to truly encourage business leaders to get involved in the EA, an agile, collaborative tool is a must – more on the importance of dedicated EA tools here.

Leadership and Influence

The Enterprise Architect’s top-down helicopter view of the business means they tend to have a great understanding of the enterprise, it’s current capabilities, and its requirements going forward. Although these are great perspectives to have in and of themselves, like most advantages, without proper application they can be wasted.

Leadership is the key to making the most out of this big-picture perspective.

Without leadership, fulfilling core EA duties such as steering through disruption and driving change can’t be done effectively.

Additionally, Enterprise Architects tend to be aligned more closely with IT Management and CIOs than other IT professionals. The same IDG study cited earlier found that 85% of EAs originated ideas that have directly impacted the business model and go-to-market strategy.

This is because their top down insight is extremely valuable to business leaders. EAs must learn how to hold the floor with such business leaders in order to effectively provide their recommendations. After all, that’s what they’ve been employed to do!

Forward Thinking and Agility

It’s vital that Enterprise Architects keep an eye on the future. They have to be prepared to face disruption and new opportunities, but also, they are often responsible for making the case for disruptive technologies.

They need to be aware of the current market, as well as how the market is likely to change to live up to this responsibility of identifying and proposing innovative solutions to help the business achieve its goals.

In sourcing new technologies, EAs must be diligent in their vetting. They’re the bridge between the technology and the upcoming project(s) in mind and have to ensure the pieces fit into the wider business outlook.

This forward thinking is a big part of Enterprise Architects effectiveness in helping the business be agile. However, Enterprise Architects must also employ a number of other best practices in order to stay agile. Most important of those perhaps, is a dedicated Enterprise Architecture tool that permits such an approach. But focusing on the actual EAs themselves, sticking to mantras like “Just in Time” and “Just Enough” Enterprise Architecture can aid in speeding up the time it takes for the business to respond to change, make more informed decisions, and reduce time-to-market of new products and services.

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