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How To Kickstart an Enterprise Architecture Initiative

The increased rate in technology disruptions means more businesses than ever will be looking to start up an Enterprise Architecture (EA) initiative. This has extended to smaller businesses too – many of which wouldn’t have considered EA before – due to the availability of more accessible tools.

But where to start? Previously, looks into Enterprise Architecture tooling uncovered two alternatives. The legacy, established EA tools, high in productivity but equally high in cost and effort, and the drawing tools – such as Visio – that require excessive management and juggling of information between multiple applications.

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First Steps in Enterprise Architecture

It’s important to establish what Enterprise Architecture is for, and why you would need to get started. Superficially, Enterprise Architecture is about the description and management of systems. In the past, it had been typified as a domain fit for “keeping the lights on” – the legacy attributes associated with IT. Today, largely due to the rise in digital business, the role of an Enterprise Architect has been pulled out of the shadows.

Now, Enterprise Architecture is more concerned with responding to disruption. EAs identify the potential for business and IT change, and analyze how best to execute or manage such changes to meet business objectives, desired outcomes and vision.

The Beginnings of Enterprise Architecture Maturity

Chances are, if you’re just starting out in EA, you’ll be ‘pre level 1’ on the maturity model. To take that first step into maturing the practice, and before you really start working on what your future state architecture looks like, you must understand your current state.

The frameworks to which your Enterprise Architecture will observe are also decided here. TOGAF, Zachman, DODAF are three common examples of such frameworks.

Your choice will ultimately come down to what you’re trying to achieve with EA, the experience of your team, and whether you prefer a defined model.

To reach full maturity, your EA initiative will have to transition from ad-hoc, reactive EA, to something repeatable, and so a defined model best suits this long term aim. Typically speaking, the TOGAF method is most widely adopted.

Enterprise Architecture Maturity

That said, some organizations won’t want a standard method, and may start with a few object types and relationships.  What matters most is that its understandable by the organization and that its repeatable.

At this point, you can move onto ‘Level 1’ maturity, carrying out ‘horizontal assessments’ of the business.

This is essentially ‘cleaning up’, sorting the data, resources etc., involved in the architecture of the enterprise, in order to build upon strong foundations going forward.

Any existing architectures should be united under one model, and one standard of terminology.

Disparity in this area can cause problems down the line, as it’s often common for different departments to have different names for the same thing and vice-versa, leading to duplicated or inaccurate data.

This is the point whereby existing data is imported into the EA repository. This should identify what the business has, and allow for modeling, roadmapping etc. going forward.

A best practice at this stage, is to start by creating a metamodel. Metamodels provide the top down, abstract view of the business and help EA’s establish alignment.

For example, they show the relationships between applications, and the business process they support, and a lack of such relationships and connections indicates areas of the architecture that aren’t properly aligned and non-functioning.

What Do I Need to Start An Enterprise Architecture Practice?

Most businesses start small, and mature the practice as they go, but some businesses with deeper resources opt to buy their way through Enterprise Architecture maturity – hiring consultants and acquiring a heavy-weight EA tool right off the bat.

For businesses where this isn’t an option, the usual process is as follows…

Typically, lower maturity EA set-ups feature a small team, an ad-hoc approach, and free and repurposed tools.

But as these EA practices grow, architects, stakeholders and business leaders often find that this approach can quite quickly become difficult to maintain.

Managing something as complex as an Enterprise’s applications, technology, information and processes across a suite of different tools that don’t interact with each other is hard enough as it is.

Then, when you factor in a growing team size, and add collaboration into the mix, this method can become nigh on impossible to sustain. sooner or later, an EA tool is required.

For more on deciding the best time to acquire a tool, click here.

How Much Do Enterprise Architecture Tools Cost?

Many companies think they can’t justify the costs, lengthy implementations projects and other resourcing factors. However, with the emergence of the Cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) model, much of these initial headaches can be avoided. SaaS pricing models usually work on a “pay for what you need” basis, reducing the threat of a new tool purchase becoming shelfware. This makes them a great option for businesses who are looking to introduce an Enterprise Architecture programme for a specific initiative.

The SaaS model is also great for businesses that are looking to get off the ground quickly. The burden of having to pay for a consultant or technician to install the tool locally is relieved – saving both time and money.

We’ve seen a shift towards the model from leading tech providers recently. More and more enterprise tools are moving to the Cloud. One prime example is Google and their Apps for Work. Not only does the model save time and money, it can also greatly improve collaboration. Google’s suite demonstrates this, by allowing users to work together on a document or project remotely. Considering the nature of Enterprise Architecture – it’s top down view of the organization, and its inter-departmental linking of systems, people and other resources – this enabling of collaboration is vastly important to the industry.

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Enterprise Architecture erwin Expert Blog

How Agile Enterprise Architecture is Helping to Build Smart Cities

Having an agile enterprise architecture is essential to enabling a smart city.

One of the challenges when creating a smart city is how to represent all the moving parts. From my perspective as KnowNowCities designs new smart places the best approach is to use agile enterprise architecture techniques to describe how the technology is applied in a place.

What is a Smart City

Firstly though, let’s start by explaining what a smart city is. The elements of a smart city can be boiled down into 5 interwoven and parallel components.

These are:

  1. Apply standards – such as Privacy by Design and PAS181 – Smart City Framework
  2. Are Open Data Centric – see the Open Data Institute
  3. Are Interoperable – so data and services from one place can interact with another place
  4. Have good governance and leadership (both hard and soft)
  5. Are Outcomes Centric and put Citizens first. Citizens make cities what they are

In short these become the overriding Smart City principles. So a key role of any enterprise architecture is to demonstrate how the technology designed meets these principles.

agile enterprise architecture smart city

Smart City Enterprise Architecture

The role of an EA in a smart city is multiple. Typically when building a new place the overriding concern is maintaining the promised return on investment. The developer needs a place that will attract customers (good rental or freehold returns); be compelling and competitive so the new place has its own ‘unique selling points’; yet, not break the bank! The EA can aid the developer in what I term is a “plan for tomorrow, but build for today” approach.

What does this mean? Planning for tomorrow is about making sure where it is going to be expensive to retrofit in the future mitigate that expense by deploying sufficient capacity for the future where it makes sense.

Simply put, this is about the reservation and allocation of space and capacity where technology may well end up being deployed. But not necessarily deploying that technology.

An example would be deploying conduit underground during the civil engineering phase of a build, but not deploying the cable through the conduit. Provide the access rights and access points to deploy any technology upgrades (be it for technology refresh or for capacity gains).

Another key aspect when designing a smart city is to recognize that technology is now part of the urban design. Yet traditional architecture of buildings and the public realm does not easily address the adoption of technology. The key here is to be embedded in the architecture and construction team from day one. As I tell my clients… technology engineers for a smart city should be considered similarly to the water engineers.

With Water you have three types (blue – potable, grey – rain/surface run off & black – waste) that each require their own special attention. When you think water… now also think technology!

Integrate with the RIBA Plan of Work

Luckily from a technology perspective having a plan of work that goes through distinct phases also fits nicely with an Enterprise Architecture centric method too. The RIBA Plan of Work method can be applied to the technology aspects of a smart city as much as it can the construction of the buildings and public realm too. So at concept stage, the technology concept architecture can sit in that phase too.

Roadmaps are the icing on the cake however. Referring back to the principle of design for tomorrow but deliver for today. It is possible to show when a particular technology component is required, how it flows from previous technology deployed/enabled and how this then supports future technology growth/deployments.

Additionally, because the EA at a concept level is exactly that, a certain amount of stability can be expected. Let us not forget that technology has a lifespan often measured in months, whereas a structure’s lifespan is measured in decades. So the EA becomes a living organic entity. Constantly evolving and changing based on need and technological capability.

Yet it is the specified and physical designs that are likely to change here. Again, the EA approach allows for this transfer of different types of technology, yet still keeping a cohesive overall architecture that can still represent the principles and concept architecture the first design delivered.

How Does erwin Evolve help?

The beauty of using erwin Evolve is that the tool provides all the outputs that are required in a smart city engagement.

Firstly, it is great way of capturing the requirements and then matching those to principles, owners and then attributing this to architected components.

Secondly, the tool can manage capacity plans, and what if scenario planning.

Thirdly, using the roadmaps and Kanban views the tool can help a client prioritize and plan the work to be undertaken.

Finally, because of erwin Evolve’s collaborative features I get to share a common view with all project stakeholders.

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Just Enough Enterprise Architecture, Just In Time: 5 Best Practices to Achieve Peak Enterprise Architecture Agility

The concept of ‘agility’ has permeated almost every inch of the enterprise. It’s not hard to see why either. The promise of faster time to markets, better management of change and disruption, and leaner, more efficient operations is clearly an appealing.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is no exception to the rule. It might have been, for a time – when EA only really concerned itself with ‘keeping the lights on’. But now that the domain has found itself aligned more closely to the center of the business EA has to be concerned with agility too.

Some Enterprise Architecture practices can struggle to really achieve agility because of various reasons. We’ve put together 5 best practices to help architecture teams deliver greater business agility and also become more agile in their own approach to EA.

Just Enough Enterprise Architecture, Just in Time

One of the most common barriers to agililty is doing too much. The complex nature of Enterprise Architecture can lead to some architects building many rabbit holes where too much unnecessary information is captured and modeled that work is never ‘done’. This state is known as ‘analysis paralysis,’ as it effectively slows down the process and time to market of EA business-outcomes. Architects should stay focused on delivering Just Enough EA to support business outcomes, instead of documenting every last detail of the organization.

Of course there are times when very deep EA is required, but as a general rule it is better to focus on Just Enough Enterprise Architecture. Whether through curiosity to learn more, or paranoia that something will be missed, attempting to model and analyze everything is fundamentally at odds with agility.

To help focus on Just Enough EA and avoid getting lost in the detail, architects should:

  • Separate Enterprise Architecture from Solution Architecture, understand that detail does exist where Architecture meets design
  • Use a goal based decision process, keeps a focus on what needs to be built and by when
  • Concentrate upon interfaces / relationships
  • Define the core properties to be collected and implement quality checks
  • Harvest and connect to records of source

A lean and agile approach to Enterprise Architecture allows architects and non-architects alike to access the information they need much faster too, since EA modeling and content is no longer weighed down by a lot of unneccessary detail. EA is more likely to secure investment this way, too – as stakeholders are more likely to invest when the business outcomes can be translated more clearly and quickly.

Engage and Collaborate with Business Stakeholders

Another hurdle to EA agility is approval. Architects often reach a point where they can’t continue without the approval and buy-in from business leaders. The quicker you can get your stakeholders on board, the faster you can move through the strategic planning process into execution. This efficiency is essential to the agile mantra.

The ivory tower perception of Enterprise Architecture that has traditionally plagued the discipline makes this even more of an issue. Stakeholders are more likely to be reluctant to invest (be it time, money or resources), if the business outcomes aren’t completely clear.

One way to solve this is to help stakeholders get a better understanding and view of enterprise architecture. Getting them engaged and collaborating on the applications, processes or business capabilities they are interest in via an easy-to-use EA tool is ideal. We can also borrow ideas from Just Enough Enterprise Architecture (mentioned above). Your stakeholders shouldn’t have to learn how to do Enterprise Architecture in order to provide input and see its benefits.

Organizations with a collaboratively driven tool can provide stakeholders direct links to specific assets in the architecture. This negates any learning curve stakeholders might have needed to navigate the tool itself, gets them straight to their point of interest, and saves them time.

Enterprise Architecture collaboration

Giving stakeholders the ability to view and contribute directly within the EA tool itself, negates the need to go back and forth with static diagrams and reports. Instead of printing out PDFs and the like (which is actually just sharing), EAs can collaborate with stakeholders in realtime allowing them to see the impact of different changes on the business and to guide investment decisions.

Ensure Your Content is Stakeholder Focused

Although it’s best to engage and collaborate with stakeholders in EA, in some cases, the stakeholders can only really take a passive role. In this case, making sure what you present to the stakeholder is tailored to them, is another great way of removing stakeholder concerns as a hurdle to agility.

View managers are a great quality of life data management system, that can help EAs achieve this. They’re already commonplace in many Business Intelligence tools and CRM Systems, but can be just as useful in EA.

The purpose of a view manager is to streamline both the visulaization and navigation of data. They take a set of user defined parameters, and act as a filter to show only what’s relevant to that view.

View Manager explained

Much of this ties into the concept of showing ‘just enough’ EA and can help users and the wider business stay agile by trimming the irrelevant data that can slow down decision making.

View Managers could also be used as a tool specifically purposed to improve agility and efficiency across the business. For example, a view could be created to always display all business capabilities or perhaps all applications that you own. It could then be sorted to show the most critical capabilities – based on their importance to the business – first.

This helps provide architects with a clear view of their own priorities but similarly which organizational priorities should be tackled first.

A business capabiltiy view is just one possible example. In terms of agility, the view would help improve the efficieny at every stage in strategics planning process, increasing agility and time to market across the board by improving systems and processes.

Kanbans

Kanban Boards are a common form of task management in business. In short, they operate as a visual representation of the current state of a specific task(s). The typical parameters are “to do”, “doing”, “done” and “parked”, but many businesses choose to define their own parameters to better suit their needs. For example, a Kanban board that follows the different stages of the TOGAF ADM.

In relation to agility, Kanbans are a great way of organizing and prioritizing your own and your teams activities. This structure is the basis for any credible attempt at a truly agile operation. Without it, organizations often find themselves wasting more time deciding what should be done, that actually doing.

Kanban’s are versatile enough to be used at almost any point in the strategic planning process – including Enterprise Architecture. In EA specifically, Kanban boards could include cards representing business capabilities, or application components, providing a work in progress view of the architecture.

Get the Right Tool

Most organizations start small with EA, repurposing tools such as Powerpoint, Excel and Visio.

This budget approach to managing EA can most definitely get you off the ground. But as the architecture grows, the silos created when fragmenting the architecture across multiple programs and file types stifle progression.

It becomes difficult to work collaboratively, as multiple team members struggle to keep aligned. In many cases, there will be multiple different versions of the architecture that don’t fully corroborate with one another.

The most direct impact on agility though, is the fragmented state of information and assets. The dispersed nature of the data makes it extremely hard to find the information you need, making the EAs day-to-day job harder, as well as introducing further complications when presenting the architecture to stakeholders. EA can be complicated enough for the experts, let alone the stakeholders that are only involved sporadically. These are complications it can do without.

The right tool would be one that unifies the Enterprise Architecture, as well as the architects – allowing them to work collaboratively within one tool, with real time feedback and comment systems across the diagrams, roadmaps, pivot tables, impact analysis and capability models.

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Collaborative Enterprise Architecture Needs More Than Sharing PDFs

Collaborative enterprise architecture isn’t a new idea.

The very nature of Enterprise Architecture (EA) demands a collaborative effort. Enterprise architects are responsible for the architecture across the company, but they don’t own it. That’s down to the relevant departmental managers.

This considered, EA has long claimed to be a collaboration focused – but how collaborative is it?

Thanks to advancements in tech, the wider standard for collaboration allows even global organizations to share work, edit and comment. Because it’s all happening in-tool, it’s all logged and changes can even be represented in real time. Google’s Apps for Work has taken the enterprise by storm, and is a great example of this.

However, in the majority of cases, Enterprise Architects “collaborate” through reporting. But reporting being an avenue of collaboration shows a fundamental misunderstanding. Reporting is one-way, a dictation of what has already been done. Collaboration indicates that what has been done, has been done cooperatively. This means live input, suggestions and even changes by the relevant parties during the process.

Furthermore, not only is simply sending out reports not collaboration, the process is fundamentally flawed.

  • Changes have to be given after the fact, causing delays and other knock on effects
  • In many cases it might even be too late to make significant changes
  • Data outside of the tool is essentially ‘passive’ only, limiting its usefulness

The truly collaborative Enterprise Architecture approach

Compare this to truly collaborative EA. Feedback is given as the EA initiative develops, largely eliminating issues with delays. But with the complex and organization spanning nature of EA considered, facilitating collaboration the traditional way – through sharing office space and discussing things face-to-face – is infeasible  To be truly collaborative, Enterprise Architecture must facilitate collaboration ‘in-tool.’

Take Google’s Apps for Work suite. The mega corporation has long been a driver of technology, and an aspirational standard for software developers. Apps like Docs, Sheets and Slides have revolutionized the workplace, allowing collaboration in real time both in the office, and between different office locations.

Considering what’s expected of Enterprise Architecture and its Architects, it doesn’t take much to connect the dots. This is where Enterprise Architecture needs to be.

The benefits of truly collaborative Enterprise Architecture

Agility

Getting greater engagement and collaboration in EA from all relevant business and IT stakeholders, helps keep EA model content up-to-date. This supports faster and more reliable decision making.

Leading analysts have been expressing the importance of Agile EA for some time now, and the message hasn’t changed. Still, report-based collaboration as it’s widely executed in EA, is a barrier to such agility. In most cases it requires exporting data outside of the tool, where it can only be useful ‘passively’. It can’t be manipulated or re-worked.

This ‘half-baked’ take on collaborating essentially guarantees duplication in process. Either having to ‘regress’ and make changes after the fact, or in some cases, particularly in larger teams of architects, rework models, roadmaps and the like from the ground up, to ensure they’re aligned across the platform.

A truly collaborative approach, supported in-tool negates this, as everybody is updated in real time, and the architecture including changes to it can be commented on directly. This is also hugely beneficial going forward, as this sort of collaboration, encouraging people to comment in tool, essentially logs the thought process and reasoning behind certain changes and actions, allowing the EA department to be reviewed far more efficiently.

Enterprise Architecture Collaboration

Encouraging stakeholder buy-in

Stakeholders, decision makers, management. Traditionally, they’ve always been difficult for Enterprise Architects to get on board. The ivory tower nature of Enterprise Architecture can be a barrier for the non-expert and they may not fully realize the value.

However, with the acceleration in digital business, organizations can no longer afford to do this. Enterprise Architecture is essential for steering this acceleration, but it still needs to be more encompassing for senior figures to make the leap of faith.

True collaboration around EA helps in a number of ways. Consider the points below:

  • Trying to sync up busy calendars for meetings and the like is no longer an issue – the Enterprise Architecture can be shared with the relevant parties directly
  • It’s far easier to encourage additional investment to mature the Enterprise Architecture –  if those in charge of budget are directly involved in the Architecture, rather than passively, they’ll be easier to convince

This is a relatively new advantage to true, and in-tool collaboration, as in the past, inviting decision makers into the tool during the evaluation process required them learning how to navigate the complexities of the EA tool, or else sharing a PDF or Powerpoint presentation. However, modern EA can avoid this headache, with SaaS, web-based EA being as easy to navigate as clicking through a URL.

Decision makers can be sent directly to a point in the tool – to a diagram, roadmap, pivot table etc – via URL and submit their feedback, suggestions and/or concerns. The ideas behind leading collaborative apps are at play again here. Think ‘sharing’ in Google Drive, Docs, Sheets etc. In this case, proving the value of Enterprise Architecture goes from a lengthy process of organizing a time, exporting data etc, to a few button presses, and an automated email or notification.

And a number of other quality of life benefits…

Such as:

  • Stakeholders can contribute EA model data themselves
    • If they’ve have been given permission by the tool admin that is. This is beneficial as they might have knowledge of missing or out-dated attributes. This is better than the traditional method where stakeholders could see the EA model data but couldn’t engage or contribute
  • The ability to see in real-time when another team member or a stakeholder is viewing the same diagram, roadmap etc
    • This helps avoid any confusion in who’s working on what, and further eliminate duplication
  • Permissions – Being able to define exactly who can and cannot see data in the tool
    • Access can be restricted by customized parameters, e.g. by geography. In this case, stakeholders in the Australia office for example, can only view EA model content related to that location

As we accelerate towards a new era in digital business with the adoption of IoT and other technologies, Enterprise Architecture is going to be more in demand than ever. However, the old way to approach EA isn’t sufficient enough to support this. We need to approach EA greater emphasis on agility and collaboration.

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Why View Managers are a Must in Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) trends towards increasing organizational agility, driving technology innovation and delivering business outcomes have helped to make the domain’s value more obvious to the wider stakeholder community.

Not only that, but Enterprise Architecture’s value is now being realized a lot sooner than before amongst less mature organizations, to show a Return on Investment (ROI). That said, there’s still room for improvement, and the domain can still benefit from a number of quality of life improvements to finally shake its ‘Ivory Tower’ perception once and for all.

The adoption of a “View Manager” is one such quality of life improvement Enterprise Architecture could stand to benefit from. We’ve already seen Views revolutionize the way we navigate other enterprise tools spanning from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to Business Intelligence (BI) tools and many others inbetween. Enterprise Architecture’s adoption of the concept is a natural step.

What is a View Manager?

In short, a “view manager” streamlines the navigation and presentation of information, allowing a user to save a number of customized representations of data to be both recalled, and/or reapplied to other data in the future.

Any Enterprise Architect is aware of just how complex an enterprise’s architecture can get. This streamlining of information will enable EA’s to view model and object data (among other types) on a snapshot basis, as well as enable these snapshots to be cycled through readily.

Enterprise Architecture View Manager Dashboard

View Manager in Collaborative Enterprise Architecture

Coupled with a tool supporting collaboration, the benefits of View Managers are even greater still. They help usher in the democratization of EA, facilitating greater engagement of the wider organization directly inside the tool.

The ability to share views means that those with the insider knowledge of the tool – the experts, the main users – can set the parameters of the view(s) on behalf of others (stakeholders, decision makers, relevant parties, etc). This makes things substantially easier when communicating the data as everybody can see the same representation of the information, without all parties needing expertise in the domain.

Data snapshots can also be shared quickly and easily to avoid the common problem of over-complicated EA. A best practice of communicating Enterprise Architecture, and generally any domain requiring expertise, is communicating only what stakeholders/business leaders/etc. need to know.

However, this isn’t indicative of shady practices. On the contrary, what is meant by this, is that the relevant parties aren’t shown irrelevant data. This redundant data can lead to a messy, and generally unagile architecture that can be difficult to comprehend for EAs themselves, let alone non experts.

Using Views as snapshots of the architecture can help avoid these issues, and the best part about it is, once the view is made, it can be applied and re-applied over and over again in an instant.

Examples of Views applied to Enterprise Architecture

Thanks to their innately customizable nature, there can be many different uses for views, depending on how the user tailors them.

A typical example found as a default option in most tools supporting views is “My X” – where X is a data type you operate in. In Enterprise Architecture, X would often be “My Applications”. In a collaborative Enterprise Architecture set up, this is a great quality of life feature that allows the architect to quickly pull up only the models/diagrams/etc assigned to them.

Another example could be “Top 10 risks.” In this case, instead of the ownership or assignment value being relevant, this view is determined by the value of risk. There are many cases in which this view would be extremely valuable. One such example could be internally (within the EA team) deciding on the priority of certain issues.

Architects could couple this with business capabilities to see which risks could potentially be lessened, or even nullified and in turn, use this information to devise the best plan of action.

For similar reasons, this view would also be relevant when communicating with business decision makers and stakeholders.

Business capabilities themselves could also benefit from such views. For example, ‘X Department Business Capabilities’ could display the business capabilities relevant to a specific department.

And these are but a few examples. Views can be designed in minutes for ANY object type and with ANY set of rules in the system, and then saved for future use. The diagram below shows a visual representation of views and their use.

Enterprise Architecture Views Breakdown

In some cases, an application, object or diagram might meet the criteria of more than one view. In this case, the information is present in both. The example above only shows views with information ordered linearly, but in reality, the information going into the view can be a lot more chaotic. That’s why the end result is so much easier to comprehend. The views show a far more focused representation than is possible without.

As with other types of enterprise software, Enterprise Architecture tools with baked in View Manager support will become the new normal. It’s a fundamentally more efficient and more simple way of interacting with data, for a domain that’s notoriously difficult to encourage outsider engagement.

For the expert, ‘views’ make it easier than ever to group, manage and focus EA information. This in turn benefits the non expert too, as stakeholders, decision makers and other relevant parties aren’t burdened with information that isn’t relevant to them – they see less ‘noise’ and can zero in on what is important. They’re also given simpler access into the tool itself, as views can be set up and customized on their behalf.

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An Enterprise Architecture Perspective on Digital Business

The ascent of digital business has been staggering. It’s not only changed the landscape on which businesses typically operate, it’s also fundamentally changed the way customers both perceive and interact with the business. Weekends and national holiday’s no longer mean shorter business hours, as the consumer is ready, able and willing to reach out to a business at any time.

In a 2015 Gartner study on CIO’s, the analysts found that 16% of all revenue, and nearly half (42%) of all processes “are already derived from digital product and services.” Furthermore, the consensus is that these figures are set to increase.

Gartner CIO Survey Chart

Don’t shy away from Digital Business

These large scale industry shifts can be a red flag for many. Accelerated change has a knack for leaving many businesses behind, and this is an acceleration of unprecedented levels. However, much has been said about how businesses need to adapt to change, rather than dig in their heels. And while it’s important that those still timid about embracing the change eventually do so (sooner rather than later, mind), the benefits of embracing digital business go far beyond simply ‘survival’.

Take the Internet of Things, for example. A marker of wheredigital business is heading, it’s consensually agreed that the number of connected devices is likely to hit 50 billion by 2020, and the value of the industry to be around $14.4 trillion – factoring both revenue, and savings due to lower costs.

Furthermore, the potential beyond 2020 is even more lucrative, thanks to the promise of more data, and more data sources. One of the benefits we’ve already experienced, as industries have transitioned to accommodate more digital business, is the increased insight that customer data has provided us.

The most straightforward case, being the brick and mortar store expanding into online markets. The data captured thanks to this change has helped retail stores of all markets both target their customer base with more accuracy, and make more meaningful business decisions based on a more reliable perception of the market.

Therefore, if implemented properly, not only will digital business bring in new levels of profit, from both new and old revenue streams; paired with the right tools, it will also provide insight into new business opportunities and areas of improvement.

What does this mean for Enterprise Architects?

As you would imagine, the role of Enterprise Architecture (EA) in all of this is to oversee, and facilitate the transformation. In many cases, EAs are already seeing this. When surveyed by Gartner, 70% of leading EAs they were already heading up the transformation into new digital business avenues.

Gartner research director, Mike Walker said: “Enterprise architects have a great opportunity to position themselves at the heart of digital businesses.

“This could take the form of establishing a business competency center that explores how the IoT can create innovative breakthroughs for the organization’s business models, products and services through rapid experimentation.”

The industry at large can guarantee two things, and both will change expectations of what the EA domain is about.

New technology can and will be a source of disruption. This is by no means a new phenomenon, but with the expected rate in which the industry landscape will change, will require revisions in how such challenges are dealt with. For a start, Enterprise Architecture will have to become more agile. This way, new disruptions can be met efficiently without severely impacting the business. The speed in which the business landscape can change now requires agility throughout the organization.

A new app, or SaaS alternative to a businesses service/product can change the playing field over night. If a businesses Enterprise Architecture initiative, that oversees systems and transformation isn’t equipped for agility, then how will the business at large be able to pivot in response?

New opportunities will be a source of new revenue streams. If businesses fail to capitalize on these new sources of revenue, they’ll likely flounder and fade away. Here, Enterprise Architects will be actioned to spearhead the search for such opportunities, as EA’s top down, wide lensed view of the organization means that they’re in a great position to spot them.

This is one of the reasons the ‘Vanguard Enterprise Architect‘ was introduced. Business leaders, realized that Enterprise Architects could be just as valuable as innovators and thought leaders in the business, as the traditional, support focused ‘Foundational’ EA role.

By doing ‘business outcome’ focused EA, and leveraging business capabilities, EAs can spot areas of the business and IT to be consolidated, invested in, or changed to increase efficiency within specific departments and across the organization. This will not only ensure the transition into digital business is smooth, but that the business will still be proactive in finding new revenue sources in the interim.

In conclusion…

Enterprise Architects mirror the progression we’ve seen from IT at large.  A once support focused, arguably fringe discipline now finds itself at the center of the organization, influencing almost all arms of the business. With the rise of the Internet of Things, and this latest transition into a more digital business orientated world, Enterprise Architects will find themselves more in demand than ever.

There are many benefits a well implemented EA team and strategy can bring – especially in the face of change as vast as this – including a reduced business risk associated with IT; better alignment of business strategy and implementation; increased flexibility and agility, and a generally more efficient IT operation.

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Enterprise Architecture as the CIO’s Digital Business Advisory

Digital business demands a new perspective to Enterprise Architecture (EA). What architects are responsible for has had to be revised, as the industry has demanded a more hands on EA contribution. The once support-only domain has transitioned into a business asset essential in business transformation, and expanded to require innovation from its practitioners.

Many industry analysts have even advised a two pronged approach to Enterprise Architecture (known as ‘bimodal’) – whereby organizations proactively recognize both the fact that enterprise architects have new responsibilities, and the fact that these new responsibilities are very different from the old.

It’s this evolution of Enterprise Architecture that is responsible for moving EA closer to the center of the organization; directly liaising and even advising the CIO.

Business Outcome Driven EA and its Benefits to the CIO

Industry analysts have been championing ‘businsess outcome EA’ for some time now. Brian Burke, Gartner analyst said: “Focusing on a standard EA framework doesn’t work. In the past EA practicioners focused on deliverables that were useful to enterprise architects but not valuable to senior management and/or did not respond to a specific business IT need.”

“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.”

This take on EA fundamentally requires the EA team to liase with business leaders, with their input considered a valuable insight into strategic planning and the execution of strategy itself. This requires empowering EAs to be the driving force behind transformation, as well as delivering high-impact value.

Consider the role of the Chief Information Officer. The CIO must ensure that the relevant business assets are in place for the organization to execute strategy, and achieve the goals, objectives and vision set out by the CEO. This means business processes, applications, technology, information and other assets must be accounted for and aligned in order to not only meet said objectives, but to do so efficiently, avoiding redundancies wherever possible.

Furthermore, it’s important that the execution of strategy, is organization wide. That doesn’t mean that every department has to grow and change in the same way, but it does require an inter-departmental understanding to make sure investments in one part of the organization do not conflict with another.

This is why the business outcome approach to EA is such a useful asset to CIOs. They can be a great source of ideas and suggestions for the CIO to take to the business for discussion.

Enterprise Architects are in the unique position of having a macrocosmic (top-down/company wide) view of the enterprise. The most immediate benefits of this is that EAs have a more clear view of areas of potential risk and disruption. However, the up sides go deeper than that. As well as being able to spot threats, the Enterprise Architect’s macrocosmic view of the organization and its systems also provides them with insight into opportunity.

In short, EA’s are best positioned to see where a system or process could be improved, re-purposed, or in cases of redundancy, axed.

The Enterprise Architect’s perspective on the business can inform the CIO of the organizations current, and future state potential through the application of Business Capabilities for example, ensuring resources are spent in the correct places drive the organization forward towards its business goals.

What Can Enterprise Architects Do to Make It Happen?

Much has been made of EA being an ‘Ivory Tower’ discipline. In many organizations, EA teams struggle to move through markers of maturity due to a lack of investment from business leaders. However, as the section above details, this isn’t down to a lack of value – rather it’s down to difficulty in conveying the value. Enterprise Architecture is a complicated domain that requires experts to manage, but it doesn’t need experts to interpret. Not if EAs don’t needlessly over complicate the procedures.

Applying modern Enterprise Architecture mantras and best practices, goes a long way in simplifying the message for stakeholders and other relevant, non-expert parties. Not only will this go a long way in helping bring EA closer to the center of the business, it will also aid in securing the funding and attention required to mature the EA department.

One of the best places to start, is a relatively new approach to enterprise architecture – collaboration.

Sure, collaboration has been a characteristic of EA for some time – but arguably, only by name. Simply sharing the outcomes of EA after the fact does not constitute true collaboration. Collaboration requires a shared experience in the whole EA process. This means clear and recognized methods of feedback such as in tool comment support; role based access with real time updates to the architecture – including roadmaps, concept attibutes and models – keeping everyone updated; the introduction of in tool Kanban boards and encouraging engagement through gamification.  Establishing a digital business platform that can facilitate this is a great first step in maturing the department.

Roadpmap

Another best practice to employ, is ‘Agile EA’. In Enterprise Architecture, agility refers to how soon the department (and the wider organization) can respond to disruptions, the time to market, and so on. To reach peak agility, EA teams should work within the parameters of ‘Just Enough’ and ‘Just in Time’ Enterprise Architecture.

This is particularly useful to stakeholders as it means they’re only presented with essential information, and not the irrelevant data that can muddy their interpretation of EA’s value.

For low maturity EA departments, those doing Visio, Powerpoint and Excel based EA, stressing the limitations of such set ups to decision makers is a must. Office Tools Enterprise Architecture is a great, low cost method of starting EA, but once the architecture begins to develop, it can become extremely difficult to manage, incredibly fast.

Not only does having to manage three separate programs, with disconnected file types, updating each individually, vastly increase work load, it also makes it extremely complicated to share with anybody else. In many cases, these sorts of architecture set ups are absolutely reliant on the architect that put them together. Only they know where this project, or that project is stored and when it’s time to collaborate, or even replace the architect after they’ve left, the headaches this can cause are significant.

This type of EA can even lead to the architecture literally outgrowing the tools, with models and diagrams extending out of their digital habitat onto scraps of paper and post it notes to keep track.

In Conclusion…

Enterprise Architecture’s shift in focus is now well documented. The discipline has reached well beyond simply protecting the organization, defining processes and systems, and setting standards. The most mature EA set ups now recognize the evolution of the job role officially, distinguishing between the ‘foundational’ (traditional EA) and ‘vanguard’ (the new EA) architects – more on Foundational vs. Vanguard EA’s here.

The evolution of EA has provided Enterprise Architects with a new opportunity to redefine their importance in the organization, but architects won’t get there by default. However, remembering principles such as Agile EA, Just in Time, Just Enough, and placing a new emphasis on true collaboration will help turn EAs into the perfect advisory team to CIOs.

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How to Simplify Enterprise Architecture Messaging for Stakeholders

Enterprise Architecture’s (EA) reputation as an ivory tower domain, has long been a thorn in its side. Winning over stakeholders, business leaders and decision makers when the outcomes of a project aren’t easily conveyed is a tough ask.

A difficulty in articulating the benefits of something doesn’t necessarily indicate that something isn’t beneficial, though. In fact it’s becoming more and more apparent, that the increasing focus on digital business is elevating the role and influence of EA.

Architects who have had calls for deeper investment into their domain rebutted, often assume it is solely – or at least largely – an issue in their messaging. Although there is truth in this, there is also a an issue in their tool’s messaging. This is the presentation, ease of sharing data, and the ‘language’ of the tool itself, not the architect’s pitch.

Although the amount of time EA has struggled with the issues implies otherwise, avoiding such trouble isn’t the monumental task many assume. Two relatively small, but significant steps will help kill Enterprise Architecture complexity, whilst helping the Enterprise Architecture reach peak maturity.

Simplifying EA by introducing an Enterprise Architecture Tool

One practice to help kill EA complexity is to streamline the way Enterprise Architecture is handled. Organizations cannot expect simple, comprehensible data outputs and business outcomes if the data going in is fractured between several different tools.

Many Enterprise Architects are familiar with the Visio, Powerpoint and Excel method of EA management, and the headaches it can cause. However, industry horror stories can often paint an even grimmer picture. One of Enterprise Architecture literally outgrowing Office tool’s capabilities, extending itself on to office walls in a collage of messy post-it notes and sketches.

Additionally, these tools require both users, and the relevant interested parties, to navigate multiple different tools. Putting aside the obvious taxing nature of needless and additional processes, the disconnect between tools and platforms make it much harder to demonstrate relationships between data – a core component of Enterprise Architecture.

But the extra processes aren’t just cumbersome to juggle. They also have to be managed in isolation. Consider the common situation where the organization relies on a blending of Powerpoint, Excel and Visio tools, where these three all deal in separate file types and methods of input. This essentially triples the amount of data that needs to be managed, greatly increasing the risk of Enterprise crippling errors.

Having one tool that can manage all Enterprise Architecture needs negates these issues. Changes to data, relationships and repositories are updated in real time via representational consistency, eliminating duplications.

An EA tool that effectively encourages collaboration takes these benefits even further. There’s no reason why any Enterprise Architecture initiative should struggle when it comes to encouraging engagement with stakeholders. There are tools available that have learned from and implemented widely adopted ‘social media norms’ such as tagging (with ‘@’) to share work with a particular colleague, and comment systems to encourage discussion.

With SaaS based tools, it’s possible to share assets direct from within the tool, further smoothing the collaboration process. Architects can directly share the diagram, roadmap or analysis in question with their stakeholders.

Simplifying EA by introducting ‘Just Enough’ Enterise Architecture

A second practice to kill EA complexity is to take a more selective approach to recording and managing data. This approach is often referred to as, ‘Just Enough’ Enterprise Architecture.

It seems obvious when working with tangible ‘things’ – the more things you own, the more difficult it is to control and maintain the ones you want. Yet with data, this logic and reasoning is often lost. To kill EA complexity, Enterprise Architects should adopt a more vigilant approach in managing their data.

Additionally, what EA’s choose to record should be more deeply considered. A ‘Just Enough’ approach to Enterprise Architecture has been championed by leading analysts – including Gartner – for some time, and for this exact reason. Maintaining data that provide value to your initiative is in essence, choosing to increase your own workload, and decreasing your productivity.

Again, these are just suggestions to help improve. They don’t require a complete overhaul of your Enterprise Architecture practice. But introducing these practices is one of the best ways to shake EA’s ‘Ivory Tower’ perception.

Enterprise Architecture & Data Modeling White Paper

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What Enterprise Architecture Can Learn from Feng Shui

Enterprise Architecture can learn a lot from Feng Shui. The nature of technology in the 21st Century has demanded that organizations re-evaluate their operations constantly. Enterprise Architecture (EA) especially, has become the embodiment of these demands for fluidity.

On a macro level, we’ve seen Enterprise Architecture transiton with IT in general as the once support focused discipline evolved, and realigned itself at the heart of business, taking on such responsibilities as innovation.

But even on a micro level, EA continues to exist in this state of fluidity, and constant evolution . This is largely due to Enterprise Architecture’s key role in strategic planning. The aforementioned, ever-changing technology sector means that now, planning and strategy have to be re-evaluated more regularly than ever before.

A constantly changing, realigning and malleable EA practice capable of agility in the face of disruptions is essential for EA to successfully meet the needs of the organization at large.

So what is Agile EA and what can it learn from Feng Shui?

“One of the leading best practices in staying Agile is a preparedness in the face of disruption. Ideas core to the Feng Shui philosophy are a great reference point in how to achieve this.”

The domain of Feng Shui is to increase the quality of living through efficiency. It’s about managing your surroundings for maximum comfort & value, and managing your architecture – the brick and mortar kind – to make the most out of it.

Simply put, Feng Shui is essentially the art of placement. The root of the philosophy is that our environment and the way it’s set up has a huge influence on our day to day lives, and it’s this root that we can apply directly to our architecture – the Enterprise kind.

Being ‘Agile’ is a mantra pertaining to EA focused on maintaining a relevant and up to date architecture that can respond to disruptions effectively as they arise. This benefits businesses in a number of ways. For a start, the scope for agility is a core component in reducing, or maintaining low time to markets.

Additionally, in some cases, disruption may derail plans completely and demand an immediate reshuffle in strategy. A business with a rigid approach to IT and Enterprise Architecture specifically will find this process far more difficult than the agile business that prepared for potential hiccups and surprises. Essentially, agility in Enterprise Architecture means being prepared for the unexpected.

Agility in enterprise architecture is achieved via the application of the proper tools and a collection of best practices. Such best practices include:

  • Just in Time EA: Creating user stories as and when they are needed and not before, issuing releases when there is appropriate value in releasing, not before and not after. Additionally, each iteration has a commitment that is met on time by the EA team.
  • Just Enough EA: An EA approach focused on doing “just enough” as not to be bogged down with “analysis paralysis”. This approach also benefits engagement, as EA experts sharing too much with stakeholders can often reinforce the belief that EA as a discipline exists in an “Ivory Tower”

With this understanding of Agile Enterprise Architecture, it’s not too hard to see where it relates to Feng Shui.

As discussed, one of the leading best practices in staying Agile is a preparedness in the face of disruption. Ideas core to the Feng Shui philosophy are a great reference point in how to achieve this. Ideas such as:

  • Simplicity – recognizing that only what you need brings value
  • The art of placement – recognizing that the location, layout and presentation of data and artefacts make a difference in how well the architecture is understood.
  • Fluidity – recognizing that changing environments mean no architecture is “perfect,” and so EA must be periodically reevaluated

Feng Shui EA perhaps relates most to the ‘just enough’ Agile philosophy. Although it can be tempting to hoard data out of caution, keeping the architecture lean by not adding data and/or artifacts you cannot justify the use of will make the architecture far more accessible to both experts, and the relevant stakeholders the experts share the repository with.

Those responsible should oversee periodic reviews of the architecture and data. One great metric to abide by is ‘data age’. If the data hasn’t been updated for a defined number of days, weeks or longer, it should be marked for review to determine if it is still relevant.

Benefits of Feng Shui EA

Organizations applying the ideas of Feng Shui to their EA will benefit from a more prepared, more agile capable architecture. With this, organizations will also benefit from all of the upsides of staying Agile including faster time to markets, better responsiveness to change and disruption, and lower costs as the increased quality in data management makes for more reliable and informed decisions.

However, a Feng Shui approach to EA will also see improvements in both collaboration, and engagement in Enterprise Architecture. This is because a more lean architecture, is more easily communicated than one bursting with – in some cases, irrelevant – data. Collaboration is improved because fellow architects can share what they need to more efficiently, and engagement benefits as stakeholders outside of the discipline aren’t burdened with an overly complex account of repositories and data.

For an Enterprise Architecture initiative of lower maturity, the increase in engagement is arguably the most important asset. The ivory tower issue that’s long burdened Enterprise Architecture can often make it difficult for stakeholders and decision makers to see the full potential and benefits of EA to an organization. This is often the root cause for stalled progression on the Enterprise Architecture maturity index.

Promoting a more engaging Enterprise Architecture that stakeholders can not only see,  but be a part of and collaborate with as well, makes it far easier to highlight potential business outcomes.

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How Enterprise Architecture Underpins Strategic Planning

Strategic planning enterprise architecture is helping organization’s keep their enterprise architecture initiatives business outcome focussed …

Strategy essentially describes an organization’s means to an end. Good strategy requires a healthy understanding of the end goal before the methods to reach it are hashed out, and much of this understanding lends itself to “Strategic Planning.”

In short, strategic planning refers to the defining of strategy, goals and direction, but it also expands to the allocation of the resources needed to meet said targets.

So where does Enterprise Architecture come in?

In defining Enterprise Architecture (EA), leading business analysts, Gartner, have this to say: “Enterprise Architecture is a strategic planning process that translates an enterprise’s business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change.

EA teams work with stakeholders in IT and the business at large to define a future-state vision of the company. They consider future requirements, principles and models, and then compare this to the current-state of the company, identifying gaps and using these gaps as insights to influence plans going forward.

Therefore, we can see Enterprise Architecture as the bridge between defining a strategy, and its implementation.

One of the benefits of Enterprise Architecture in strategy implementation is transparency. How well strategy is communicated is an essential component of getting it right. Oftentimes, those formulating a strategy and those implement it are different people, in different departments, with different expertise. A common problem, as departments in organizations often work in ‘silos’ – parts of a larger whole working in separation to one another. This disparity is a hotbed for disconnections in data and ideas, and in turn, limited (or none at all) success in implementing strategy.

Well integrated collaboration support in Enterprise Architecture serves to align the relevant parties by keeping everyone up to date. It also benefits the business by applying a consensually agreed upon, and stable framework in which all parties can build on efficiently.

Strategic Planning Lifecycle

The figure above demonstrates EA’s place at the heart of strategy and implementation. Enterprise Architecture intercepts the various steps in planning and delivery. It provides analysis to highlight the more critical areas of attention, highlighting which projects should be prioritized. Additionally, EA also serves to align the various stages involved in delivery, through well structured governance of the architecture at large.

Strategic Planning and Business Outcomes

Gartner have often spoken about business outcome driven EA. The mantra is an attempt to shed some of the baggage in how enterprise architecture is conveyed to those outside the discipline.

EA has historically struggled with its perception as an ‘ivory tower’ technology discipline. Therefore, a business outcome approach is beneficial as it makes the end goal and benefits to the organization more clear to management and other stakeholders.

This approach benefits heavily from the ‘just enough‘ approach to enterprise architecture – also referred to as agile enteprise architecture – and focuses predominantly on what the business needs, and what the IT Organization must do to support it.

Business Outcome Driven EA Gartner

As indicated by the graphic above, strategy is at the root of this approach. Organizations must decide on their goals and direction, and then communicate this to the enterprise architecture team.

From here, the EA team can considering their business capabilities and map them out to the different Business Plans levels, before moving on to strategy implementation.

The Strategic Planning Timeline

The first point of call on the strategic planning timeline is to consider the corporate vision. This vision usually details things such as how the business leaders and other relevant stakeholders, think the company will differentiate itself from the competition; and the perceived value of the companies services and/or products (in the eye of the customer) compared to their competition.

Ideas pertaining to the transformation of the business are then weighted by their value in relation to the corporate vision. From here, the relevant resources needed to action such ideas are considered, and eventually compared to what the company already has.

For example, a business may decide that a better on-boarding process would help achieve its vision of being a leader in customer experience. One such way this could be achieved is through a more intuitive trialing and feedback platform. Subsequently, the business would analyze its current on-boarding process to highlight where it falls behind the newly established ideal. Transition planning would then be actioned to determine how the gap between the current process, and the ideal can be addressed.

Without enterprise architecture or strategic planning, these ideas are arguably only good for white board decorations. Attempts to implement the new strategy will likely result in a number of false starts, or even failure to get off the ground at all as essential considerations are overlooked, plans are rushed into action and the various organizational silos all pull in different directions.

With an enterprise architecture solution, however, ideas can graduate from the whiteboard, become almost tangible targets that departments can envision and work towards. With everybody on the same page and pulling in the same direction, not to mention the decreased likelihood of unwelcome surprises upon implementation, the whole process becomes a lot more manageable.

enterprise architecture business process