Reading Questions
- What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
- If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
- Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
- Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
- Does your firm have an EA? How does it affect your day-today decisions?
The Strategic IT Transformation at Accenture Case
Think about the following questions as you prepare for our discussion this week in class or on Webex:
- What is Accenture’s core IT philosophy?
- Identify three key IT projects from the 2001 – 2008 period and explain how each strengthened Accenture’s enterprise architecture?
- What measures of success did Accenture use for this effort? Why?
Jan & Rich
Folake Stella Alabede says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
An Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a conceptual tool that assists organizations with the understanding of their own structure and the way they work. It provides a map of the enterprise and is a route planner for business and technology change.
The design, development and deployment of an Enterprise Architecture enables the organization to study all elements of its operational functions and align its IT systems and operations with its business processes in a more integrated way
(REF- Kyriazoglou, Chapter 3)
Enterprise architecture is one of the most powerful management approaches that can be used by an organization. It is not intended to be used (only) at a solution or project level but for the big decisions that an organization’s leadership team have to make. The leadership (i.e. the C-level executives, and heads of divisions etc.) have to make the decisions based on the facts and knowledge base (the Enterprise Architecture repository) delivered by the enterprise architecture function. Those decisions are supported by the enterprise architecture function planning their execution in the EA roadmap
Typically the focus of Enterprise Architecture is on:
• Increasing the return on business and IT investments by more closely aligning them with business needs.
• Identifying areas for consolidating and reducing costs
• Improving executive decision making
• Increasing the benefits from innovation
• Delivering strategic change initiatives
• Managing business transformation activities
The Enterprise Architecture is also characterized across the following multiple dimensions:
• Direction: Enterprise Architecture is focused on strategic planning (i.e. business transformation, strategic change programmes) and not on operational change (i.e. run the business, six sigma, lean processes)
• Scope: Enterprise Architecture is focused on the whole of the business (i.e. the Business Model and Business Operating Model) for all business and IS/IT functions, and not just on the IS/IT components.
• Timeline: Enterprise Architecture is focused on the long term view of the future scenarios (up to 3/5 years in the future) and not just on a short term view of current state. Enterprise Architecture is focused on a roadmap of changes to an organisation’s capabilities.
• Value Chain: Enterprise Architecture is focused on the whole of the enterprise (i.e. the extended organization and value chain) and not just on the scope of a delivery project
• Stakeholders: Enterprise Architecture is focused on the needs and concerns of the C-level executives (CEO, CIO, COO etc.), business executives, corporate and business strategists, investors, strategic planners.
So overall, the primary purpose of Enterprise Architecture is to support strategic change such as :
• The introduction of new customer and supplier channels
• The consolidation of the existing portfolio of people, processes, application and infrastructure
• The reduction of costs and risks, ensuring the enterprise will remain viable and profitable
• The design of a new organisation, business model and business operating model.
• The due diligence for mergers and acquisitions and management of the resulting integration program.
• The development of smarter and more effective systems (not just IT systems).
• The introduction of shared services and applications.
• The introduction of new technology, platforms and infrastructure such as SaaS, Cloud etc.
(Ref – WordPress.com)
Richard Flanagan says
Folake,
Good summary. Do you think EA is equally applicable to all enterprises? If so why? If not, to what type of enterprises is it more or less applicable.
Rich
Folake Stella Alabede says
Professor Flanagan,
I’ve actually been trying to do a research on this ? I’ve been giving it some serious thoughts, because i would say almost all Enterprises should need an EA, as TOGAF defines “enterprise” as any collection of organizations that has a common set of goals. For example, an enterprise could be a government agency, a whole corporation, a division of a corporation, a single department, or a chain of geographically distant organizations linked together by common ownership.
But what of the enterprises that are local and not so big, would they still need an EA ?
To use an example, i know enterprises like Costco, Macys, JCPenny have EA’s but would or should enterprises like Staples, pathmark, stop n shop, kmart have an EA ?
what is the most basic requirement for an enterprise to have an EA? i dont think implementing an EA comes cheap
Andres Galarza says
Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important?
The four levels of the Federal EA model are as follows.
– Business Architecture
– Data Architecture
– Application Architecture
– Technology Architecture
My view is that Business Architecture is the most important of the four levels.
Which is most addressed?
Unfortunately, the level that seems to be most addressed is the Technology Architecture.
Does this make sense to you?
Based on the readings this week, it makes sense to me, but I think it’s unfortunate and misguided. The Business Architecture is what drives forward the soul of the enterprise. A point that has been hammered home in the course is that the IT strategy and functions must align to business strategy and functions, not the other way around. The risks of not having these two pillars aligned are that IT functions can become expensive write-offs because they ultimately add no value to the business functions.
Richard Flanagan says
Andres,
So why does this happen? If it is so well known to be critical why isn’t everyone using EA? Or is it just a bunch of IT people trying to make themselves sound important?
Andres Galarza says
Rich,
I’d say it’s because the directors and c-suite echelons of most organizations are still mostly populated by people who do not deeply understand the role of IT and aligning IT strategy to their business functions.
Take a look at this annual director’s survey information put together by PwC:
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/governance-insights-center/annual-corporate-directors-survey/assets/pwc-2015-acds-module-board-composition-and-diversity.pdf
On page three of the report, directors were asked to answer, “How would you describe the importance of having the following attributes on your board?”
Only 37% of those surveyed found IT Strategy Expertise to be “very important”. That’s astoundingly low. Furthermore, IT Strategy expertise importance is down 5% in importance from the last year the survey went out. Lastly, if you look at what’s behind IT Strategy in importance? Cyber Risk Expertise.
Another article, http://www.cio.com/article/2390404/cio-role/cios-say-corporate-directors-are-clueless-about-it.html, adds to my (somewhat jaded) view that there’s still a very long road to go towards aligning the two pillars discussed in our EA readings this week.
Candace Nelson says
Wow – those are frightening trends Andres. It really makes you wonder how Directors are so far removed from the reality of the cyber world. Its no wonder breaches continue to occur at an increasingly alarming rate. I think it is only a matter of time before Boards are required to have IT expertise, as the Enron/WorldCom, etc. frauds that led to the Sarbanes Oxley regulation resulted in the SEC mandating Financial Acumen on Public Company boards.
Xiaodi Ji says
Andres & Rich,
I think the reason why many companies do not pay attention is that they believe that IT just a tools which support the enterprises. Even for me, before this week, I do believe that IT department is a support department. What they should do is ensure every systems and severs work well. They are the executor of the enterprise’s plan no a designer. However, the materials of this week shock me. This is the first time to know that we should put EA to such important level. However, when I tell those thoughts to my friends, a lot of them cannot accept it. They do not think that EA or IT can be set to such level. Therefore, I think that the thought which stay in everybody’s mind that IT just auxiliary tool for enterprise or business is the main point that EA cannot be treated as important as others.
Sachin Shah says
I think many organizations consider IT to be operations and not what generates profits. In reality a proper functioning IT department with good EA would lead to better business related outcomes. I have worked at places where IT is considered to be support and management can just hollar at IT department and ask them to magically make things happen. This happens when people are not observant of IT and setting up the proper EA to which the business can perform best under that structure. If that procedure is actually followed that the organization succeeds as the IT EA is functioning efficiently and the business is prospering.
Anonymous says
Rightly said Andres. Alignment of IT strategy with the business is very important in order to understand the need of each and every IT System of an organisation. Smooth running of the business and meeting its goal fulfill the need of IT in an organisation. Establishing IT systems without understanding its need to business will increase the cost and efforts for an organisation and will ultimately harm the business.
Just to add an example, When I was working with a NGO based startup, the director desperately wanted to establish SAP which is a very expensive product for a startup organisation with 50 employees. A big amount was spent on it. The need for the product was undefined and ultimately it went bankrupt and was shut down. So such can be the consequences of not establishing an EA.
In my view, Business function is most important but technology architecture is most addressed as it is responsible to meet the business goals. Any issue in the technology architecture or its failure may lead to loss of business. So in order to ensure the smooth running of business, it is a need that Technology should be kept in focus.
Sean Patrick Walsh says
I totally agree with your assessment! The purpose of a business is to achieve maximum profits, so the business architecture is built around achieving that end goal. The business’s mission, value, and vision statements are all focused on how the business is intending to get there. With that in mind, Enterprise Architecture should be built around the business with the focus of adding value to the core business. As you stated, a business focusing efforts on building IT architecture without thinking about that IT in the context of adding value to the business could easily find itself wasting resources on projects that are of no use to the business. I would add too that paying attention to SDLC’s in active projects in regard to dynamic business environments is really important even in an EA that is focused on business architecture because what was properly aligned to add value at the beginning could quickly become a losing proposition in any given moment with technology.
Richard Flanagan says
Sean,
You recognize the building a business aligned EA is about doing the right things and that SDLC is more about doing them right.
Deepali Kochhar says
Very well explained Andres. It is very important to understand the need of business and to align the IT systems with business strategy. Putting in IT systems without identifying its need will increase the cost and effort for an organisation which will ultimately make a negative impact on the business.
Just to add an example, when I was working with a NGO Based startup, a new director was appointed for the IT department who came from a very well established firm and was working on SAP. He wanted to establish SAP for this startup with just 50 employees and convinced the owner to do so without identifying the need to setup such a costly product. It costed the organisation a big sum and failed to gain any kind of output from it. This made the IT department bankrupt and had to shut down.
Just to add my point to your answer business is the most important out of all four but addressing Technology architecture is most important because IT is established to meet the business objectives and it is very important to define and address the technology architecture in order to ensure the productivity of the business. For this reason it is important to keep it in primary focus.
Richard Flanagan says
Deepali,
Great example, there are no right answers, or at least very few, that can be applied in all cases. The answer is almost always “It depends” on the business context.
Yulun Song says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
An enterprise architecture is one of the most powerful management approaches within an organization. It is used to help organization’s leadership team make big decisions. The leadership team has to make decisions based on the enterprise architecture.
A formal definition according to MIT is: ‘enterprise architecture is the organizing logic of business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model. ‘(Chapter 3)
According to OpenGroup, the purpose of enterprise architecture is to optimize across the enterprise the often fragmented legacy of processes (both manual and automated) into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supportive of the delivery of business strategy.
The purpose of enterprise architecture controls is to ensure, enable and facilitate:
– The establishment of the entire IT governance framework
– The good alignment between the corporate strategy and the IT strategy
– The accomplishment of the strategic goals by the provision of optimal IT services
– The continuous support of the critical business functions by IT systems and infrastructure on an efficient and effective basis
(Chapter 3, Kyriazoglou)
Another source: http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/
Paul Linkchorst says
Professor Yeoman’s Section
Question 1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
According to the text, there are many definitions of enterprise architecture. However, what enterprise architecture boils down to is the designing and implementation off all aspects of an organization. This includes aligning the business objectives, the organization’s structure, organization’s operations and processes, and information technology. In order to create an enterprise architecture, a framework should be utilized, with many varying frameworks being available to organizations from groups such as MIT and NATO. By utilizing a framework to create an enterprise architecture, an organization can often times reach its goals of integrating and streamlining the business. By interconnecting all the various processes and parts of the organization, it can benefit by improved efficiency, reduced costs, increased ability to adjust to new business needs or objectives, and better decision making. By utilizing an enterprise architecture, an organization has a game plan or roadmap on how to go about designing the business to run as fluently and interconnected as possible.
Richard Flanagan says
Paul,
You mention a roadmap, how does EA serve in that role? From the first part of your note it seems like once my organization has EA we’re done, is that right? .
Joseph Henofer says
Readings Q&A
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The goal of having an enterprise architecture is so that an organization can unify its IT environment across all business units with a strong link to the business side of the organization and its strategy. This goal is to provide a flexible structure, promote alignment, standardization, reuse of existing IT assets, and the sharing of common methods for project management and software development across the organization.
With these goals, the enterprise architecture purpose is to create an abstract IT roadmap of IT assets, business processes, and a set of governance strategies that drive a constant discussion of business strategies and how IT can be used in those strategies. In the end, the goals help create an enterprise architecture that will make IT cheaper, more strategic, and responsive.
Richard Flanagan says
Joe,
Can you conceive of an organization whose well done EA doesn’t “unify” all of its IT environment? If so, what would it look like?
Joseph Henofer says
I would have to say if two big companies merge together or one buy’s the other one out. An example would be when Comcast acquired NBC Universal about 3 years ago. I was working for Comcast at the time when the acquisition was completed. When I left Comcast about year after the acquisition they were still trying to unify the IT infrastructure. For instance, they were still using two different video conferencing system which at times caused problems. This made managing the environment difficult at times to say the least. I still talk to a few friends in IT from Comcast and they still haven’t fully unify their IT infrastructure with NBC Universal.
Xiaodi Ji says
Joseph,
I am so surprise to see this example. Two big company use almost 3 years and still cannot fully unify their IT infrastructure. In my mind, I think that this situation may just happen in a small-or-middle-size company. If you do not mind, could you to me why they always use two different video conferencing? Why cannot they unify their IT infrastructure? Enterprise does not give enough money or IT department have some argue about what equipment should use.
Joseph Henofer says
Xiaodi,
Why they used two different video conferencing systems, stubbornness. At this time neither group wanted to work together for fear of the other group taking over. There were many meetings that I sat in that were just uncomfortable to hear each side arguing over the most juvenile things. It was hard to believe that two successful companies like this couldn’t agree on one solution. Money was never an issue. I believe that power was the issue and since Comcast acquired NBCU they had it, therefore leading to a constant battle about anything.
Xiaodi Ji says
Joseph,
Power always causes lots of trouble. Sometimes people just want to keep what they have. Even they know this is not good or others is better. Thus, I consider that before or in the process of building EA. We must think about the feeling of employees. Whatever database, software or hardware, if we have time or enough technology people, we can solve all of those problem, However, human’s problems are harder and more dangerous than others. Thank you for your example and explanation. It really give me many thought.
Joseph Henofer says
2. If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
When acquiring a new line of business your EA should be evaluated so your other lines of businesses are not affected by the acquisition. For instance, you could use gap analysis tool, which will allow you to compare the current state of your EA and how acquiring a new line of business would fit in or how you would have to modify your current EA.
Below are a few EA needs that should be evaluated
• Existing IT assets
• Existing EA
• Existing EA standards
• Organizations principles and practices
• Desired business strategy
• Available Frameworks and tools to develop a new EA or modify the existing one
After the evaluation, you may learn that new EA structure that is created will contain new IT strategies, new or modified EA standards and a blueprint describing the IT projects that are needed to implement the new architecture. Now if your current EA is flexible then the transition may be easier to implement, but if it’s not you may have to adopt a new EA which can be challenging and time-consuming.
Richard Flanagan says
Joe,
Good answer and I’d like to reinforce your flexibility comment. This is very important for everyone to understand. Its one thing to be aligned and providing good IT service. Its another to do so and maintain the organization’s ability to adapt to an unknown world.
I would quibble with your first sentence. The goal of an acquisition might be to substantially disrupt or cannibalize your existing business. In such a case your EA might have to disrupt what already exists and is working.
Sachin Shah says
I agree with being flexible. If an organization is not flexible than their technologies will become outdated and the ability to perform optimally will suffer. I recall working at a company that still ran reports of a mainframe, it was tedious and the mainframe had to be housed in a specialized server center. It than cost the organization a lot of money to sunset the mainframe as they had to buy new solutions and hire staff that could implement that solution.
I also agree with business practices and standards being of great importance. Once upon a time at my job when a vendor gave us “minimum” hardware specs for a software, management would purchase that bare essential. It than cost more money to maintain that server and in a short period of time a system or application would perform less optimally sue to the decision to but the minimum hardware, etc. Now if you buy a slightly better hardware or a UNIX box etc than an organization spends a lot early and than has an administrator just handle the little maintenance and hardware, reboots, patching, etc is never an issue.
Ryan P Boyce says
1. The goal of having an enterprise architecture is to allow the IT organization to govern what types of technology they will implement into their systems. The enterprise architecture of an organization defines specific technical requirements, not best business practices. The business strategy will likely drive the direction of the enterprise architecture but they are two different things. An example of this would be if a company wanted to provide twenty-four-hour support for one of its products. To do this, they would have to consider purchasing VPN software to allow employees to connect to their systems’ during off-hours. To build out the enterprise architecture of this scenario, the IT organization or whoever is responsible might to decide to purchase Citrix Receiver because of its compatibility with operating systems that are already in use. The overall business strategy called for around-the-clock support but the enterprise architecture called for Citrix Receiver because it fit with what the company already had. Furthermore, the individuals who mandated this new business practice are likely not to care what tool the company uses to achieve their goals, whereas, those who maintain the enterprise architecture certainly do. From a scalability standpoint and sticking with this example, Citrix products, as the company might determine, have better longevity than Checkpoint products. Citrix, therefore, fits in better with the overall enterprise architecture of the organization moving forward.
2. If a firm adds a new line of business, it can have major a impact on enterprise architecture. First and foremost, the company will have to determine what types of applications the new line will require to operate. The new venture might require the company to adopt new applications that are difficult to develop. This may require them to seek the services of a consulting company which is obviously a major cost. From a pure technical perspective, this new business unit will most likely increase traffic across the company’s network backbone. Even if the traffic is small, there is a security concern associated with this. If the traffic is large, new hardware such as NICs, switches, and fiber cables may have to be purchased to support this new load. If it is determined that the new solutions used to drive the new business line will all stay in-house to the company, new rounds of hiring may need to take place and, again, this means incurring costs for the company. In general, though, the personnel, hardware, and software for the new business unit will have to fit in with the architecture the company already has in place. This will have a major impact on the current and future architecture once the solution is implemented.
3. Enterprise architecture efforts can fail in many ways. Firstly, the effort can fail if decision making is fragmented among senior IT personnel. Implementing a successful IT architecture cannot occur where different groups within the IT organization are siloed from each other. Take, for example, if the applications development group is making changes based on a certain type of OS that the operations people are not able to support, the architecture of that company will become disjointed quickly. Efforts can also fail if there are not clear and effective business decisions made by executives. If the business strategy of a company is disorganized, there is a potential for that company to have multiple initiatives driving multiple projects that cause disunity. In other words, the business strategy is really what will initially drive enterprise architecture and when the business strategy is driven in multiple directions, the architecture behind it will not be able to keep up. Another way the architecture can fail is if the technical people implementing and supporting it are incapable of supporting the products that are chosen. Take for example if a company decides to implement a new payroll system written in a language not used by the company and running on an OS that is new also. Initially the system may work great, but if something breaks or needs updating, the IT department may not be able to do this which may result in holes in the enterprise architecture.
5. My organization absolutely has an enterprise architecture. In the position I am in, however, I have not seen it nor does is it mentioned, specifically, to me or my peers. I can say that it certainly affects my day-to-day decisions in that the tools and systems I am using and working on were implemented before I got there as a result of the enterprise architecture. As a systems administrator, I would say I am much further down the line, near the bottom, of the lineage of those who are involved in the enterprise architecture. Senior IT personnel make the larger, more high level decision on which systems to procure and implement and my group actually does the implementation and runs these systems. I work with mostly Linux systems so I am the one actually logging in to a server and configuring hard drives and configuration files. These efforts are the end result of the enterprise architecture, but a part of the enterprise architecture nonetheless.
Joseph Henofer says
Ryan,
Question #2
I agree that acquiring a new line of business can have an impact on the current EA, but if your EA is flexible then you should be able to adapt. You stated that “In general, though, the personnel, hardware, and software for the new business unit will have to fit in with the architecture the company already has in place.”, Why does the new business unit have to fit in the EA of the company? I mean wouldn’t you be able to evaluate your current EA with the new business line that is being acquired and see what the results are afterwards? I believe that EA’s are dynamic and need to be evaluated frequently.
Richard Flanagan says
Excellent question. It may or may not. For instance, suppose I am a water-born adhesives company and I buy a line of cyanate adhesives and their customer list. I probably don’t need to change anything, just implement the new LOB into my systems. But suppose I buy a consumer tape company (like Scotch Tape). It uses my same water-born adhesives but it has very different business processes from continuous manufacturing (not batch) to possibly selling to consumers. Here I would want to look carefully at what to do with the new EA;.
Richard Flanagan says
Ryan,
You said “The business strategy will likely drive the direction of the enterprise architecture …” Shouldn’t it always drive the EA?
It seems curious to me that, as a sys admin, you don’t see evidence of the EA. Do you have legacy systems? Is there a plan about when they will be replaced? No problems with standards being enforced throughout the organization?
Candace Nelson says
Good insight on Question # 3 Ryan regarding disorganized business strategies. When I formulated my response to this question I focused on alignment between IT and business initiatives without giving much thought to the creation of streamlined business strategies themselves. We used to call them cascading – there would be enterprise strategies and the next level of business strategies had to support the level above, and so on. Using this method, all goals and objectives would ultimately support of the overall strategic objectives of the organization. I haven’t heard that terminology in a while, so your response provided good food for thought.
Folake Stella Alabede says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
1. LACK OF GOVERNANCE/ Not Establishing Effective EA Governance Early
Lack of governance or poorly defined governance procedures and policies will result in constant and confusing architectural products with poor traceability, gaps and overlaps. Once this happens the work will quickly lose credibility and result in failure.
If there is more than one person conducting architectural work, then a degree of governance is essential. The more people involved and the greater the scope then the more attention to governance is needed. It is important that you get your governance processes and policies defined at the outset and once defined they need to be constantly reviewed to ensure that they are fit for purpose.
Once your governance structures are in place, then it is necessary to measure the progress and conformance of all architectural work being undertaken to ensure that it conforms to the laid down governance rules.
A good governance regime should adhere to the following characteristics:
• Discipline – A commitment by all of your stakeholders to adhere to the governance policy and procedures
• Transparency – All of your stakeholders are aware of the rationale behind your policies and procedures
• Independence – Your governance processes, mechanisms and decisions do not conflict with other interdependent governance organizations and policies
• Fairness – Your policy and procedures should not show a bias to any one department or sub-organization
• Responsibility – To act responsibly towards the organizations and stakeholders and not cause unnecessary damage or distress
• Accountability – There are clear lines of accountability covering all aspects
2. NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE ARCHITECTURE IS FOR
It is common to see organizations undertaking architectural work simply because it seems to be the right thing to do. They end up modeling for the sake of modeling and not really know why they are doing it.
A common mistake is to place too much emphasis on the “as is” architecture. Probably the reason for this is that it is relatively easy – it’s what we know most about. You must continually ask yourself – is this important, do I really need to be modeling this?
Unless your intended outcome is to understand what you already have, then you simply need to model enough of the “as is” in order to understand the “to be”.
You may find that the BOSCARD mnemonic is a useful approach to thinking about the important things that you will need to do at the outset of conducting architecting work. It’s a term that comes out of project management and is used to help define terms of reference:
• Background – Provide the background information that includes the reasons for creating the architecture and mention the key stakeholders (architects) who will benefit from the results.
• Objectives – Describe the goals of the architecting work – it may be that you simply throw the work away once the benefits are realized – think SMART (Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic/Relevant, Time Bound)
• Scope – Provide a high level description of the viewpoints that will be created and the results that they are intended to deliver.
• Constraints – Identify any limitations or conditions that constrain the architecture
• Assumptions – Specify the high level factors that are considered to be true
• Risks – Identify the risks and their significance with regard to the
architecture work
• Deliverables – Define key deliverables (Views) that are required to deliver the objectives.
Reason
3. SETTING YOUR GOALS TOO HIGH
You must work within the scope of your mandate and don’t try to define a large architecture in a single iteration.
Prioritize and start with limited goals then demonstrate that you are able to achieve them. You can build out once you have buy – in from the necessary stakeholders.
Be realistic – you can only change those things that you are empowered to change. Even if it is within your mandate to describe aspects that are outside your realm of influence, you need to engage with the stakeholders that are responsible for that area; better still, federate with any similar work that they are doing.
4. NOT REALISING WHO THE TRUE ARCHITECTS ARE/ Not Engaging the Business People
It’s very common to find a small team of people who have been given a mandate to conduct architectural modeling; however, they then quietly work away at defining the architecture without any, or with very little, consultation with other dependent stakeholders. In doing so they make more and more assumptions or simply gloss over what they do not know.
The resulting work may look very good, but is it right? The architecting team may consider themselves as Enterprise Architects but there are a whole range of people who need to be engaged in defining the architecture; in other words, it is not the Architecture Team who are the true architects – it is those stakeholders who work within the business and solutions that the architecting team are capturing who are the true architects. The architecting team are simply facilitators of architecture. Right at the outset, it is important that you identify who the stakeholders are and their relationship to the domain of interest. It’s well worth doing a formal stakeholder analysis to identify the true owners and the beneficiaries.
5. FAILING TO SELL THE BENEFITS TO THE STAKEHOLDERS/ Insufficient Stakeholder Understanding and Support.
Benefits are realized through outcomes so don’t get these mixed up with the outputs.
One of the first things you must do is get buy – in from the highest level of stakeholders who have authority over the scope of your architectural domain – they are the architecture sponsor and must give you a mandate to conduct the necessary architectural work. If you cannot achieve the necessary buy – in or secure the appropriate mandate then do not even start.
Once you have buy – in from the top you must then proceed to sell the architectural approach to the lower levels – again if you cannot achieve buy – in then it will be unlikely that the architecture will succeed.
Buy – in can be achieved through education. We recommend something like a one day familiarisation course for key stakeholders.
The training should focus more on why your stakeholders need to take an architectural approach and less on how it’s done. More detailed training can be undertaken once the governance processes are in place and the tool selections have been made.
Once the architecting work has started, get the stakeholders actively engaged. This can be done through workshops where you should use the modelling to help focus the stakeholder discussions and reach consensus.
They will also start to understand how the architectural modelling benefits their day to day work.
Better still, get the stakeholders to undertake their own modelling – it may be a paradigm shift in the way they work but one worth doing. Unless you get that cultural change the architecting initiative will be more likely to fail.
As the architecture scales up this becomes more crucial. Once the stakeholders start to refer to and correct the models, they are starting to take ownership. If you start to see the modelling plastered on their office and correct the models, they are starting to take ownership. If you start to see the modelling plastered on their office wall then you know that you are on the road to a successful architecture.
Sources a) http://www.bmt-hqs.com/media/3991708/five_reasons_for_architecture_failure_…__and_how_to_avoid_them_.pdf
b) http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1159617
Kevin Blankenship says
I think #2 is an important issue. EA is an important part of an organization, but setting up an architecture without shaping it to fit your company’s business goals and culture is a set up for disaster. It needs to have a purpose that is relevant to the business function it helps enable. Enterprise architecture for enterprise architecture’s sake is a bad idea.
Folake Stella Alabede says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
1. LACK OF GOVERNANCE/ Not Establishing Effective EA Governance Early
Lack of governance or poorly defined governance procedures and policies will result in constant and confusing architectural products with poor traceability, gaps and overlaps. Once this happens the work will quickly lose credibility and result in failure.
If there is more than one person conducting architectural work, then a degree of governance is essential. The more people involved and the greater the scope then the more attention to governance is needed. It is important that you get your governance processes and policies defined at the outset and once defined they need to be constantly reviewed to ensure that they are fit for purpose.
Once your governance structures are in place, then it is necessary to measure the progress and conformance of all architectural work being undertaken to ensure that it conforms to the laid down governance rules.
A good governance regime should adhere to the following characteristics:
• Discipline – A commitment by all of your stakeholders to adhere to the governance policy and procedures
• Transparency – All of your stakeholders are aware of the rationale behind your policies and procedures
• Independence – Your governance processes, mechanisms and decisions do not conflict with other interdependent governance organizations and policies
• Fairness – Your policy and procedures should not show a bias to any one department or sub-organization
• Responsibility – To act responsibly towards the organizations and stakeholders and not cause unnecessary damage or distress
• Accountability – There are clear lines of accountability covering all aspects
2. NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE ARCHITECTURE IS FOR
It is common to see organizations undertaking architectural work simply because it seems to be the right thing to do. They end up modeling for the sake of modeling and not really know why they are doing it.
A common mistake is to place too much emphasis on the “as is” architecture. Probably the reason for this is that it is relatively easy – it’s what we know most about. You must continually ask yourself – is this important, do I really need to be modeling this?
Unless your intended outcome is to understand what you already have, then you simply need to model enough of the “as is” in order to understand the “to be”.
You may find that the BOSCARD mnemonic is a useful approach to thinking about the important things that you will need to do at the outset of conducting architecting work. It’s a term that comes out of project management and is used to help define terms of reference:
• Background – Provide the background information that includes the reasons for creating the architecture and mention the key stakeholders (architects) who will benefit from the results.
• Objectives – Describe the goals of the architecting work – it may be that you simply throw the work away once the benefits are realized – think SMART (Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic/Relevant, Time Bound)
• Scope – Provide a high level description of the viewpoints that will be created and the results that they are intended to deliver.
• Constraints – Identify any limitations or conditions that constrain the architecture
• Assumptions – Specify the high level factors that are considered to be true
• Risks – Identify the risks and their significance with regard to the
architecture work
• Deliverables – Define key deliverables (Views) that are required to deliver the objectives.
Reason
3. SETTING YOUR GOALS TOO HIGH
You must work within the scope of your mandate and don’t try to define a large architecture in a single iteration.
Prioritize and start with limited goals then demonstrate that you are able to achieve them. You can build out once you have buy – in from the necessary stakeholders.
Be realistic – you can only change those things that you are empowered to change. Even if it is within your mandate to describe aspects that are outside your realm of influence, you need to engage with the stakeholders that are responsible for that area; better still, federate with any similar work that they are doing.
4. NOT REALISING WHO THE TRUE ARCHITECTS ARE/ Not Engaging the Business People
It’s very common to find a small team of people who have been given a mandate to conduct architectural modeling; however, they then quietly work away at defining the architecture without any, or with very little, consultation with other dependent stakeholders. In doing so they make more and more assumptions or simply gloss over what they do not know.
The resulting work may look very good, but is it right? The architecting team may consider themselves as Enterprise Architects but there are a whole range of people who need to be engaged in defining the architecture; in other words, it is not the Architecture Team who are the true architects – it is those stakeholders who work within the business and solutions that the architecting team are capturing who are the true architects. The architecting team are simply facilitators of architecture. Right at the outset, it is important that you identify who the stakeholders are and their relationship to the domain of interest. It’s well worth doing a formal stakeholder analysis to identify the true owners and the beneficiaries.
5. FAILING TO SELL THE BENEFITS TO THE STAKEHOLDERS/ Insufficient Stakeholder Understanding and Support.
Benefits are realized through outcomes so don’t get these mixed up with the outputs.
One of the first things you must do is get buy – in from the highest level of stakeholders who have authority over the scope of your architectural domain – they are the architecture sponsor and must give you a mandate to conduct the necessary architectural work. If you cannot achieve the necessary buy – in or secure the appropriate mandate then do not even start.
Once you have buy – in from the top you must then proceed to sell the architectural approach to the lower levels – again if you cannot achieve buy – in then it will be unlikely that the architecture will succeed.
Buy – in can be achieved through education. We recommend something like a one day familiarisation course for key stakeholders.
The training should focus more on why your stakeholders need to take an architectural approach and less on how it’s done. More detailed training can be undertaken once the governance processes are in place and the tool selections have been made.
Once the architecting work has started, get the stakeholders actively engaged. This can be done through workshops where you should use the modelling to help focus the stakeholder discussions and reach consensus.
They will also start to understand how the architectural modelling benefits their day to day work.
Better still, get the stakeholders to undertake their own modelling – it may be a paradigm shift in the way they work but one worth doing. Unless you get that cultural change the architecting initiative will be more likely to fail.
As the architecture scales up this becomes more crucial. Once the stakeholders start to refer to and correct the models, they are starting to take ownership. If you start to see the modelling plastered on their office and correct the models, they are starting to take ownership. If you start to see the modelling plastered on their office wall then you know that you are on the road to a successful architecture.
Sources a) five_reasons_for_architecture_failure_…__and_how_to_avoid_them_.pdf
b) gartner.com/newsroom/id/1159617
Richard Flanagan says
I would say that my old organization was guilty of #4 in our first attempt at EA. We had a small team of some very good technicians who started the EA group and began modeling the company. At the time, I headed the Business Relationship side of IT and they would occasionally come to me to ask questions about the business but they never really engaged the business. It was an example of the a bottoms up approach to EA and it never really worked.
Joseph Henofer says
Readings Q&A
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
1. Connecting EA and Business Strategy
If your current business strategy is not aligned with your current EA then your success rate will be minimal. This is the goal of the EA, unify your current IT infrastructure and systems with your business functions of the organization so you can have a successful organization. In the DentDel case, we read that the business strategies did not align with the current IT infrastructure thus leading to a financial mess. The issue also was stated in the YNG case when both the IT Infrastructure and business management group never connected. At first, the IT group led the selection and acquisition process but when they failed the business management group took over and shut out the IT group.
2. Managing EA in a cost-cutting environment
I believe this example is a challenge in most if not every company. Organizations are more often than not under the pressure of making a profit and limiting cost. So when managing EA you are evaluating the structure and the return on investment which may be difficult to quantify for your stakeholders. This is especially true if you’re in the beginning stages of implementing an EA. If both the business strategy and IT Infrastructure are aligned, as well as having senior management backing then the EA should be viewed as a driving tool and not an expense that can be cut.
3. Not enough support from C-level so that EA is not given enough attention
This trend seems to be more consistent with many organizations that are not successful. In many of our discussions throughout the first 4 weeks, we touched upon how C-level and senior management support is crucial in any successful organization. These are the leaders in place to help drive the ability to align the business strategies with the IT Infrastructure. If they are not supporting the EA then your company will ultimately be unsuccessful. In the DentDel case, the CFO didn’t give the project enough support to have it succeed. The examples of this are when he wouldn’t show up to project meetings unless money was being discussed and the fact he should have met with the general counsel before implementing the project. This lack of attention and support is what lead the project to have a financial issue causing its failure.
4. Managing EA in an outsourced environment
Managing an EA is a difficult task by itself, now you introduce the fact that your IT is outsourced. This type of structure may lead to communication and direction problems. In the Stars Ambulance case, major projects were being implemented by consulting groups which lead to inefficient use of the IT technologies and growing cost. This example was made clear when the computer assisted dispatch system was being implemented. The project was being managed by the consultants instead of the IS department. In this case, the business department consultants didn’t communicate well with the IS group which could have led to potential network issues.
5. Emphasis on Technology Instead of Business
In an EA the technology and business side need to be aligned so that the organization can be consistent and respond to change in an efficient manner. Putting emphasis on one over the other may lead to problems and failures in the future. In the DentDel case, we read that the technology strategies and the business strategies were not close to being aligned. This example was made evident when CIO decided to implement a redesigned system using wireless technology and new hardware without consulting the general counsel. This project failed in the end because technology had more of an emphasis than the business strategies, but could have been avoided if properly aligned.
Richard Flanagan says
Joe,
I encourage you to think about and use the concept of “options” when talking to business leaders about EA. High level exec’s understand the power of holding “options” that can help address future unknowns. These might be financial options, contract options, raw material purchase price options, etc. The concept of investing in EA to avoid future pain by being quick to adapt to unknown threats or opportunities is very similar.
Priya Prasad Pataskar says
Q] What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
A] An enterprise architecture (EA) is a conceptual blueprint that defines the structure and operation of an organization. The intent of an enterprise architecture is to determine how an organization can most effectively achieve its current and future objectives.(def: Wikipedia) The leadership has to make decision based on the Enterprise level repository. This repository is built on basis of the road map that the EA encourages.
Enterprise Architects suggest plans to implement, the employees and management will implement actions while EA architects will oversee the plan and investors fund the plan.
The purpose of EA is,
-Giving strategic direction to enterprise
-Eliminating duplication, increase shared services
-Scoping the entire business along with its IT, business, operational encompassing all the activities
-It foresees the long term objective and and develops road map towards enterprise objective
-EA focuses on management, stakeholders, investors, business planners in helping them solve their concerns regarding business
-Improvements in using IT to drive business adaptability.
-Closer partnership between business and IT groups.
-Improved morale, as more individuals see a direct correlation between their work and the organization’s success.
-Reduced numbers of failures and complexity in systems.
-EA itself, once created, would be employed by stakeholders to achieve their specific goals such as fixing process issues, enterprise standardization, integration, technology alignment to business operation, investment decisions, strategy implementation
-EA encourages strategic governance in changes to organization
Example, An EA framework will be followed when the business has change needs like introduction of Ebusiness
[Source: https://ingenia.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/the-purpose-of-enterprise-architecture/%5D
Janet Yeomans says
Priya,
You cite many benefits of a good EA. Just a couple of comments:
– Remember that the IT Strategic Plan is a separate document that should be the basis for an EA. So strategy first, then framework provided by the EA for executing strategy.
– An EA needs to be flexible to accommodate changes in business. Please do not think of it as a stationary framework but rather as a dynamic one that can easily be modified to accommodate changing business needs.
Vaibhav Shukla says
The most important goal for establishing enterprise architecture is to have a common architecture for business process,data and technology .
This in turn will help bring together views of strategy, business, and technology that allow an enterprise to see itself in current and future time
In reference to IT it plays a very important role as it help in achieving 3 important IT goals
• It helps in alignment of IT and business Strategy
• It helps in creating a dynamic process and also reduce time taken to turn IT objectives into approved initiative with satisfaction of business executives
• It also helps in optimization of IT assets, resources and capabilities
Folake Stella Alabede says
4. Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
TOGAF divides an enterprise architecture into four categories,
1. Business architecture—Describes the processes the business uses to meet its goals
2. Application architecture—Describes how specific applications are designed and how they interact with each other
3. Data architecture—Describes how the enterprise data stores are organized and accessed
4. Technical architecture—Describes the hardware and software infrastructure that supports applications and their interactions
I think all the levels are actually important. Its more like looking at your face and saying the mouth is more important than the nose or the ears and vice versa. All these are features that make up the face, just like all the EA model make up the EA Model.
We have learnt extensively through this course IT Governance that Business has to be aligned with IT, but if I really have to choose, I’ll say Business Architecture is very important.
Which is most addressed?
I feel –personally –that the most addressed in this modern day and age is the Technical Architecture.
But people should realize that without the business itself, there is no IT. IT is to support the Business in achieving the common Objectives of the business.
Referring to the 3rd question for this week-one of the possible ways an enterprise architecture could fail is lack of proper/effective governance.
And as a parting shot, I just wonder if there has been cases where you have failing businesses but they still have very solid and high-tech IT, how has the still effective IT help stop the business from failing ?
Ref
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232.aspx
Joseph Henofer says
Folake,
I like your analogy about the face and how it relates to the 4 levels of the Federal EA. I have a slightly different spin, I would say that the Business architecture is the brain and the other parts make up the inside and outside of the body. Al;so you stated, “But people should realize that without the business itself, there is no IT. IT is to support the Business in achieving the common Objectives of the business.”. Wouldn’t this be the same for the other architectures? So even though all four levels are important, would you agree that the Business architecture is the most important?
Richard Flanagan says
Folake,
To your last question, I can’t cite any specific examples but I am sure there have been. Clearly a great technical IT architecture that isn’t needed will speed a company’s demise by spending cash for the wrong thing. More interesting is a company whose architecture fit its business model perfectly. Nothing says the business model will be successful but an appropriate EA should keep it running as long as possible.
Ahmed A. Alkaysi says
I believe that Business Architecture is the most important out of the four. Like you have stated, without business there is no need for IT. The other three architectures all feed into Business Architecture.. Business architecture represents “business functions….and the information it uses.” (Kyriazoglou, Chapter 3.3.2) I interpret this as, what information systems the different business organizations are using, and these information systems are made up of the Data, Application, and Technology architectures. The Business Architecture is ultimately defining what these are.
Xiaodi Ji says
I have a little bit different opinion about what you say. I think now the relationship between business and IT more like hardware and software. It is hard to say which one can exist without other one. If we have excellent hardware, we need superb software. If we do not have it, we cannot play the full performance of the hardware. On the contrary can also be set up. For the enterprise, they have great business(software). However, the servers and IT equipments(hardware) are really bad, which can make many errors or messes in the company. Think about this, if Amazon have a terrible website and order management system, I do not think its business can success. Therefore, I think today, business and IT have same level in the company and this is the reason why we think that more and more companies should use EA to rebuild their inside system.
Folake Stella Alabede says
hmmnn Xiaodi, i’m trying to look at it from your point of view. I just feel business should be given some more importance, because without business, the others really dont exist.
And to also use the amazon analogy, Amazon has a very solid business architecture as well as IT, but without effective business architecture, the solid IT structure might really be a waste of time.
using a personal example, i’m an amazon freak, i buy almost everything from Amazon, from pins to soap, name it, i even have subscribe and save items that deliver monthly/every 2 months etc., and everything is delivered like the next day, like really, Amazons IT architecture is a solid one. so its happened like twice now, i ordered a touch screen computer, and amazon sent me a hard drive, i mean, how is a small hard drive compared/related to a computer ? i called, and immediately they sent me a shipping label to return the hard drive and express shipped the computer to me immediately while i was still on the phone, and they gave me the tracking number, that is also part of solid business architecture. But imagine on the other hand they told me i was lying, they shipped a laptop and i claim it was a hard drive, there is nothing they can do about it bla bla bla, no matter how good the IT is, that will be the end of my business with amazon. And this has happened at one time or the other to a lot of my family members, but Amazon delivers, always.
So i really feel Business architecture should be given proper recognition, the other architectures are equally important as well, but they only exist because there is a business
Sachin Shah says
Very good analysis, yet of the four architectures you listed: Business, data, application and technical; the business architecture is the “straw that stirs the drink”. Not every organization will be a technical company, I have experience working in healthcare, insurance, and even publishing and the key component is what does the organization do to make money. All the other 3 types of EA help the businesss operate and grow and assist with decision making process. The technical architecture can make a firm more robust, the data gives management help to make decisions, and application architecture give the employees electronic ways of doing their work. Yet the work it self is all relative to the Business and the architecture behind it.
Sean Patrick Walsh says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The goal of having an Enterprise Architecture is to properly align the business’s processes, functions, purpose, and IT resources in a standardized method to reach its goals in an efficient manner. A standardized method gives the business a set structure to achieve that proper alignment instead of a subjective ad hoc deployment of its various functions, processes, and purposes previously in each area of the business.
By implementing an EA, the business can begin to identify areas of it that are a complete mess and are wasting resources, failing to deploy resources properly, or a combination of both. Once armed with the knowledge of where failures are occurring, the business can begin the process of using the EA format to achieve a baseline of architecture to aim toward. Other areas of the business may not be as bad off compared to the EA standard selected and can actually begin to move toward a better deployed architecture beyond the baseline recommendation.
Sean Patrick Walsh says
2. If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
Well, if a business already has a well implemented Enterprise Architecture frame within the entity, the business would have input from all appropriate players involved to add the new line of business. As long as the EA was functioning well the new line of business should be able to be added and deployed in the most efficient way to add value to the business.
If the business does not have a fully functioning, or well functioning, EA than than adding a new business could be costly. Without a properly implemented EA the new business may have processes and purposes that are not properly aligned with the businesses current segments. The new business may have segregated resources that are implementing their own IT functions and deploying resources in their own individual manner not aligned properly with the rest of the business EA.
I think the trickiest aspect of adding a new business line would be through a merger or acquisition activity. A business may decided to add a new line, but instead of starting from the ground up may move instead to acquire an already functioning business line from the market. Whether the purchasing business has a well functioning EA or not may not matter because if the new business line does not have an EA, has a poorly functioning EA, or a completely different EA framework would all pose problems. If the new business line did not have an EA, then the purchasing business would have to take steps upon purchase to begin implementing its EA framework to ensure the new business is aligned properly. If the new business has a poorly functioning EA, then the purchasing business would have to investigate what areas are functioning improperly to decide on a plan to move forward to bring the new business into mutually alignment. Now, if the new business has a different EA framework implemented than the purchasing business may want to assess its EA function against its own EA, determine the differences, and then decide which method of implementation and deployment is overall more efficient. In that instance, acquiring a new business line may actually offer a synergy due to the EA efficiency the new line offers. All three of these outcomes could potentially affect the value of the merger or acquisition too after-the-fact if not taken into account when negotiating the deal originally.
Richard Flanagan says
Sean,
You are so right about mergers and acquisitions. I have been on several deal and transition teams and it is very difficult work. The acquired business may have very tailored legacy applications that fit its needs perfectly but that will mean hardware and systems software for the buying company. Replacing it all may make line of business less efficient (and hence less profitable) and will cost a lot of money. On the other hand integrating it with the buyer’s systems will also cost a lot and make their EA more complex and less flexible. There are no right and wrong answers to this work, only better and worse. What a strong EA gives the buyer is a conceptual model from which to make a thoughtful decision. Without one, its anyone’s guess.
Sean Patrick Walsh says
Rich,
So if I understand you correctly, a business that has an EA in place already would give that business a baseline from which to make decisions of in the event of M&A? I didn’t even consider the “teams” aspect of M&A activity too, and how the dynamics of those teams could make the transition of different aspects of the differing EA’s go smoothly or difficultly. Because of the human elements involved, I suppose both units could have great EA frameworks in place, but because of individual loyalty to each of them their could be transitional “in-fighting” that could take place. Have you ever noticed, or heard of that happening?
Magaly Perez says
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
Enterprise architecture is somewhat of a blueprint of the IT environment within an organization. Its main goal is to create a unified IT environment. To elaborate more on this blueprint concept; it provides an organization/ standardization of hardware and software systems across a company and by doing so, it governs the design and evolution of the business strategy. This focus allows the company to promote alignment, standardization, all while using the existing IT assets. Overall, the purpose of enterprise architecture is to create a map of IT assets and business processes all by a set of governance principles that drive an ongoing business strategy through IT.
Richard Flanagan says
Magaly,
Be sure to consider its future orientation not just the current state. It looks at both and attempts to balance the needs of today with the likely needs of tomorrow by keeping its options open.
Janet Yeomans says
Magaly,
Rather than govern the design and evolution of the business strategy, as you suggested, the goal of an EA is to support the alignment of IT strategy with the business strategy to be sure IT can effectively support business activities. A good EA should allow flexibility for changes to business strategy that arise from new opportunities and competitive pressures.
Magaly Perez says
Thanks for the additions. I completely agree Professors, the flexibility aspect of the EA must be taken into account in regards to Today’s needs and Tomorrows, while keeping the alignments of IT strategy and the business objectives.
Abhay V Kshirsagar says
Prof. Yeomans’ class
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The enterprise architecture acts as a conceptual tool that helps organizations understand their own structure and the way they function.
EA is a process for describing an enterprise (including its information systems), then planning and governing changes to improve integrity and flexibility of the enterprise. Descriptions are of two types: baseline (as is), intermediate descriptions (milestones) and the future (strategic vision of the enterprise).
EA is more about technical capabilities needed to meet the business needs.
In this modern age, it is nearly impossible to anticipate how technology is going to have an effect on how people do business. Enterprise Architects can utilize knowledge of organization’s strategy, process, IT and IT assets to ensure that business and IT are aligned. As new technologies appear every day, EA can help construct a bridge between the business goals and these new technologies.
It provides strategic flexibility to organization, which is important if the organization is going to add a new line of business.
Large enterprises can be very complex; EA helps to reduce this complexity by segmenting the organization (for e.g.: a big government department can be segmented into its agencies) or it can do it via different domains. Domains can be of different types: Business (goals, processes, functions), Data, Applications (IT applications, services offered to businesses), Infrastructure (platform, wires, system s/w), security, compliance, etc.
In summary, after creating descriptions, performing gap analysis and planning strategic migration, EA is all about overseeing the changes and govern the changes (standards are followed, etc.)
Source: http://www.business2community.com/strategy/why-businesses-need-enterprise-architecture-0432056#yA2AB4xKyOJhdHU2.97
Chapter 3, IT Strategic and Operation Controls by Kyriazoglou
Richard Flanagan says
Abhay,
I would caution you to be careful about saying “EA is more about technical capabilities needed to meet the business needs.” I worry that this puts too much emphasis on the technical and not enough on the business. The later must drive the former for it to be successful.
Brou Marie Joelle Alexandra Adje says
Professor Yeoman’s Section
Question 1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The goal of having an enterprise architecture is to support strategic change and determine how an organization can most effectively achieve its current and future objectives.
The advantages include: improved decision making, improved adaptability to changing demands or market conditions, elimination of inefficient and redundant processes, optimization of the use of organizational assets, and minimization of employee turnover.
Wenlin Zhou says
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The purpose of enterprise architecture is to optimize across the enterprise the often fragmented legacy of processes (both manual and automated) into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supportive of the delivery of the business strategy. (Introduction to TOGAF)
The enterprise-architecture (EA) department can play a central role in reducing the complexity associated with digital transformations. Most companies have a dedicated EA group embedded within the larger IT organization. This group typically oversees the entire systems architecture, including business processes and IT infrastructure. It helps to establish rules for and processes around technology usage to ensure consistency across business units and functions.
Jason Wulf says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
First I wanted to define enterprise architecture, so I took in a few more definitions.
ANSI/IEEE Std 1471-2000: “The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution.”
Cap Gemini: “Enterprise Architecture is the description and visualization of the structure of a given area of contemplation, its elements and their collaborations and interrelations links vision, strategy and feasibility, focusing on usability durability and effectiveness. Architecture enables construction, defining principles, rules, standards and guidelines, expressing and communicating a vision”
Forrester, Gene Leganza, 2001: “Enterprise architecture consists of the vision, principles and standards that guide the purchase and deployment of technology within an enterprise”
Gartner Group: “Enterprise architecture (EA) is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating, and improving the key principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution.”
Gartner Group, Philip Allega: “Enterprise architecture is the process that interweaves business and IT together”
Institute for Enterprise Architecture Development: “Enterprise Architecture is about understanding all of the different elements that go to make up the enterprise and how those elements interrelate”
MIT Center for Information Systems Research: “Enterprise Architecture is the organizing logic for key business processes and IT capabilities reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model.”
The ArchiMate Foundation: “A coherent whole of principles, methods, and models that are used in the design and realization of an enterprise’s organizational structure, business processes, information systems, and infrastructure ”
The Open Group: “By being inclusive with all other management frameworks, EA is a discipline that helps the Enterprise define , develop and exploit the boundaryless information flow (BIF*) capabilities in order to achieve the Enterprise’s Strategic Intent.” *Boundaryless Information Flow is a Trademark of The Open Group
US Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF): “Enterprise architecture is a management practice to maximize the contribution of an agency’s resources, IT investments, and system development activities to achieve its performance goals. Architecture describes clear relationships from strategic goals and objectives through investments to measurable performance improvements for the entire enterprise or a portion (or segment) of the enterprise”
See https://www.ariscommunity.com/users/koiv/2009-08-20-10-definitions-enterprise-architecture-which-corresponds-yours
I would define enterprise architecture as a map of commonly understood and agreed upon “way of doing things” in an organization. The goal of the enterprise architecture is help the organization move forward.
I think of these concepts like a car. The enterprise architecture tells you how to operate the stick shift. The strategy is the steering wheel, the vision is the way to get there, the mission statement is where you’re going, the board of directors is the driver.
Richard Flanagan says
Jason,
IT sounds like you are focusing on the technical and not the business, both in present and in future. OF all your definitions I like these three the best:
Gartner Group, Philip Allega: “Enterprise architecture is the process that interweaves business and IT together”
Institute for Enterprise Architecture Development: “Enterprise Architecture is about understanding all of the different elements that go to make up the enterprise and how those elements interrelate”
MIT Center for Information Systems Research: “Enterprise Architecture is the organizing logic for key business processes and IT capabilities reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model.
You’ll notice that they all address the business, its processes and data, its systems and the technologies they run on.
Jason Wulf says
Hi Rich,
Those organizations where focusing on the technology. I’m looking at it from a systems theory perspective, which is my definition is devoid of technology to be inclusive of business. The “way of doing things” is a composite of strategy, processes, procedures, practices, and policies. This provides a common communication and work flow that allows the organization to move forward. Inconsistent or ill-defined “way of doing things”, prevents the organization from moving forward. I’m thinking your mantra “Right things, done right” applies to this train of thought.
Please let me know your thoughts on this.
Richard Flanagan says
Jason,
That’s fine but in my opinion systems thinking is as alien to business leaders as technology. I took your phrasing to imply technology and I think most business leaders would too.
Andrew P. Sardaro says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
• An Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a conceptual tool that assists organizations with the understanding of their own structure and the way they work. It provides a map of the enterprise and is a route planner for business and technology change.
The design, development and deployment of an Enterprise Architecture enables the organization to study all elements of its operational functions and align its IT systems and operations with its business processes in a more integrated way
(Source: Kyriazoglou, Chapter 3)
• The purpose of enterprise architecture controls is to ensure, enable and facilitate:
– The establishment of the entire IT governance framework
– The good alignment between the corporate strategy and the IT strategy
– The accomplishment of the strategic goals by the provision of optimal IT services
– The continuous support of the critical business functions by IT systems and infrastructure on an efficient and effective basis
(Source: Kyriazoglou, Chapter 3)
• Enterprise architecture (EA) is a discipline for proactively and holistically leading enterprise responses to disruptive forces by identifying and analyzing the execution of change toward desired business vision and outcomes. EA delivers value by presenting business and IT leaders with signature-ready recommendations for adjusting policies and projects to achieve target business outcomes that capitalize on relevant business disruptions.
(Source: Gartner – http://blogs.gartner.com/it-glossary/enterprise-architecture-ea/
After researching, I feel the goal of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) is about having a universal understanding of the enterprise including the business side. What is the organization strategy, what is the current state of the enterprise and how does it operate, what do you want to achieve with this strategy and how do you advance/address technical and business changes.
Ahmed A. Alkaysi says
Hi Andrew,
I agree that EA is about “having a universal understanding of the enterprise…” In the end, its ultimately about having an IT framework or structure that is meeting business objectives. When there is a clear and proper EA in place, it will provide flexibility and the agility to adapt to change in business strategy. I think this is one of the greatest benefits to having a good EA.
Sheena Thomas says
I agree with you statement as well.. “universal understanding of the enterprise including the business side”. My thoughts are, once you understand the business process, then you can proceed to designing and implementing technology that supports the business.
Jason Wulf says
1.What is Accenture’s core IT philosophy?
Accenture’s core IT philosophy was previously seen as providing customized service and support based on company need and level of urgency. Accenture’s new core IT philosophy is to be seen as a business partner that rests on a common platform providing straight forward IT services aligned with the business.
Andres Galarza says
Jason,
I agree with your assessment.
I really enjoyed the Accenture reading this week because it painted the picture of a “solid win” by a company who took careful precautions to ensure their IT functions aligned precisely with their business functions. I think it’s important to point out, however, that Accenture found themselves in a strong position as a result of the split from from Arthur Anderson. You could obviously say this was a period of perilous risk, but the ability to build their IT functions “from the ground up” as a new and large company isn’t something you see often.
Perhaps the most predictive element of Accenture’s IT function alignment’s success was the support that the CIO, Frank Modruson, had from his superiors. The article clearly stated how the CIO’s policies and procedures’ “had teeth” behind them, as evidenced by the need for program managers to justify project requests with evidence such as ROIs. The IT function was empowered to say “no” to bad ideas.
Jason Wulf says
Hi Andres,
I was doing a risk assessment on company Z (Can’t state real name due to NDA) and they took Accenture’s business model to the extreme. Nearly every department was a subsidiary. For example, Human Resources was a subsidiary of the parent company who also provided services to other companies. The same goes for different IT divisions. In writing a risk report, I wanted to scream. However, it seems to have worked for them.
Richard Flanagan says
Good discussion. I think it helps that Accenture is an “information” based company meaning that what they are selling is information/knowledge. I think it would be more difficult for a hard core manufacturing company to have had the same “solid” win.
Fred Zajac says
The goal of having an enterprise architecture is to ensure, enable, and facilitate:
Establish the IT governance framework to manage risk
-Identify what IT risks are a threat to the company and set a framework to mitigate the risk
Alignment between the corporate strategy and IT strategy
-Determine the goals and mission statement of the company to determine the best IT strategy.
Accomplish strategic goals by provisioning optimal IT services
-Setting aside business resources to produce the most favorable IT services
Continuous support of critical business functions by IT systems and infrastructure on an efficient and effective basis,
-Having the employees fully understand and utilize the technology to produce / perform at a higher level.
The goal of an effective Enterprise Architecture is to identify under-performing areas throughout the organization, and determine if IT may be able to improve the functions of these areas. If the answer is “yes”, a fact-finding mission should be conducted to select the proper IT solution. Companies will utilize IT in different ways. Understanding why IT is currently used at the organization and finding areas of the company that may be improved by modern technology will increase company strengths.
Janet Yeomans says
Fred,
Your second point, enabling and supporting alignment of IT strategy and business strategy, is the key goal. A good EA will accomplish this and maintain a balance between IT efficiency and business needs (recognizing that these are not static). Be mindful of the distinction(s) among a governance framework, a business strategy, an IT strategy and an EA.
Richard Flanagan says
Fred,
I don’t see EA as having “The goal of an effective Enterprise Architecture is to identify under-performing areas throughout the organization, and determine if IT may be able to improve the functions of these areas.” This implies that IT knows best and should be telling the business was to do. When EA is well done, the business and IT are defining how they can work best together today and in the future in a thoughtful way. I think this is very different.
Fred Zajac says
Prof. Flanagan,
I don’t believe IT should be telling what business business should or shouldn’t do. I believe an effective enterprise architecture will identify how the IT is delivered and how the IT is utilized in the business process. This will help identify the risks associated with the technology used throughout the company.
If this is the case, by carefully examining the EA, you should be able to identify areas where IT is producing diminishing returns or has become unsecured. Changing the environment is a business decision that should include the companies technology council and C-Level executives.
For example, a company may have decided to purchase a new server, rather than paying a monthly fee in the cloud for the project management software used for multiple functions of the business. Let’s say the projected break-even point for the server vs hosted is 5 years. After 3 years, it turns out the support costs associated with purchasing the server were under budgeted and costing the company more than originally expected. With the latest upgrades required for the on-site server, it may now make financial sense to eliminate the server and go to a hosted platform.
Fred Zajac says
If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
The EA would be affected in different ways. The first way would be the risks involved with the new line of business. New line of business will require proper controls to be established for the department, IT equipment, and employees to mitigate risk factors.
The new line of business will increase operating costs, which may cause a realignment of funding, pulling needed resources away from better producing lines of business.
Employee training and ramp up time on systems functionality may take longer than anticipated, reducing production and issues with the new line of business.
Adding a new service / product is a huge decision for any company. EA will help minimizing the costs and time to get the new line of business fully operational, and maintain the line after development, but research will be needed to ensure the proper solution is in line with the company mission and budget.
Prof. Jan Yeomans Section
Andrew P. Sardaro says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
1. The Wrong Lead Architect: Having a chief architecture who is ineffective as a leader. He or she may know EA but cannot lead. Recommended traits, strong communication, well respected, strategically minded.
2. Not Engaging the Business People: Not having IT and Business aligned. Non-technical people making technical decisions, and enterprise architects becoming reactionary in response to projects.
3. Insufficient Stakeholder Understanding and Support: Executive team not involved in EA framework. Make EA communication and education a top priority to ensure executive team buy-in.
4. Doing Only Technical Domain-Level Architecture: A dated approach where only top level architecture is involved in EA. A holistic approach is preferred were both business and IT architecture are included.
5. Not Establishing Effective EA Governance Early: Enterprise architects must resist
the temptation to wait for more architecture content before setting governance processes and instead develop content and governance in parallel.
(Source: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1159617 )
Janet Yeomans says
Andrew,
Also keep in mind the potentially fatal risk of having an EA that, while supporting a static business model, does not provide for the evolution of the business in response to new opportunities and competitive pressures. A good EA must accommodate business agility.
Alexander B Olubajo says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a method and an organizing principle that aligns functional business objectives and strategies with an IT strategy and execution plan. It is is the art/science of “architecting” the enterprise – involves modelling and documenting all aspects of the organisation (i.e. the enterprise) to ensure that services, processes, applications, information, data, technology, locations, people, events and timelines are all aligned with the enterprise goals and objectives.
Enterprise Architecture deals with the architecture strategy, architecture patterns, principles, architecture design, business architecture, and IT governance, sometimes even more aspects of IT in relation to the business of an organization.
The main goal of having an enterprise architecture is to enable better transparency between IT and business objectives. An enterprise architecture department will help to establish rules and processes on technology usage with the aim of ensuring consistency across business units and functions.
Resources:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/entarch/whatsnew/index.html
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb945098.aspx
Anonymous says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
• The enterprise-architecture (EA) department can play a central role in reducing complexities in an organization.
• Most companies have a dedicated EA group embedded within the larger IT organization with a goal to oversee the entire systems architecture, including business processes and IT infrastructure.
• It helps to establish rules for and processes around technology usage to ensure consistency across business units and functions.
• This group can help the CEO and others on the senior leadership team redesign their companies’ business and IT architectures so that they can avoid the pitfalls and ensure the smooth running of an organization.
Richard Flanagan says
Hey folks,
Be sure you log in using your Temple ID and password so that you get credit for your submissions. Remember we do look at the quality and quantity of your weekly posts.
Jason Wulf says
Hi Rich/Jan,
Please note. If someone logs into this site, their post must be approved. Their picture is displayed next to their name if they uploaded a picture. If someone posts with their name and email address in the reply, then the post is immediately posted without approval and without a picture.
Richard Flanagan says
Jason,
If you log in, only your first post needs to be approved, if anonymous they must always be approved.
Folake Stella Alabede says
i also just noticed i have some posts that posted as anonymous , how do we address that professor ?
Deepali Kochhar says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
• The enterprise-architecture (EA) department can play a central role in reducing complexities in an organization.
• Most companies have a dedicated EA group embedded within the larger IT organization with a goal to oversee the entire systems architecture, including business processes and IT infrastructure.
• It helps to establish rules for and processes around technology usage to ensure consistency across business units and functions.
• This group can help the CEO and others on the senior leadership team redesign their companies’ business and IT architectures so that they can avoid the pitfalls and ensure the smooth running of an organization.
Ahmed A. Alkaysi says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
Enterprise Architecture (EA) focuses on the technical aspects in order to meet the business strategy. The goal of EA is to provide the organization with a framework to analyze, plan, and design the IT solution to meet the objectives that business has set. It can be thought of as a “blueprint,” or framework, consisting of applications and any IT systems that align to the business goals and objectives.
EA has many purposes. With a good EA in place, IT solutions can be efficient allowing the sharing of services across different parts of the business. This will optimize the cost of technology being used. EA also enables IT to quickly adapt to business strategy changes. The main goal of EA is to make sure that IT strategy is aligned with the business strategy.
Richard Flanagan says
Ahmed,
I also worry about EA’s “focus” being on the technical. Its focus should be on making the business successful by giving it the technologies it will need today and tomorrow.
Mansi Paun says
Rightly said, Ahmed. It’s very important that the technical needs of an EA are dictated by the business goals and not the other way. An excellent, state-of-the art EA that doesn’t aid in achieving the business results laid down by the company is just another route to EA failure. It is as good as a square peg in a round hole – it just won’t fit.
Rich also highlighted that the EA should be the right not just for today but for the future aswell. A good EA is one that is right for now and offers flexibility to be moulded such that it is right for the future business goals too.
Loi Van Tran says
Good input on an EA requiring the flexibility to adapt to new change and challenges. I believe this is the main point of a great EA. Not only does it aligns IT strategy with business strategy, it provides the organization with a proactive and holistic response to disruptive forces by identifying and analyzing the execution of change toward desired business outcomes. This is kinda of what we referred to as a roadmap; where the business wants to be, and how could/would IT support it.
Ahmed A. Alkaysi says
2. If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
One of the benefits of having a good EA in place is being able to quickly adapt to the changing business strategy. When a new line of business is created, either a new IT solution needs to be created, existing IT systems can be leveraged, or both will need to be incorporated. In any case, the EA would be impacted. Within the existing EA, one would look to see how the current IT solutions are being used across the business. Can any of these services be leveraged for the existing company? If so, how will this affect the current infrastructure? Will adding capacity to the current system decrease performance? These are all questions an EA can help answer.
EA isn’t just about the technology side of things. It is the “master plan which acts as a collaboration force between aspects of business planning, such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles; aspects of business operations, such as business terms, organisation structures, processes and data; aspects of automation, such as Information Systems and Databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business, such as computers, operating systems and networks.” (IEEE, Kyriazoglou, Chapter 3.3.1) With the new line of business, the goals, visions, and strategies will also be impacted, which would in turn impact the overall EA.
Loi Van Tran says
Like you said, adding a new line of business has a lot of potential impacts on EA. I believe that a good EA would integrate things such as Project Portfolio management and Enterprise Risk Management and should definitely take a risk-based approach to help organizations achieve objectives, especially when thinking about a new business line. Some things to consider are how does the new business line fit into the organizations overall strategy, what type of infrastructure is required, and how would it fit into existing infrastructure. I don’t think that a new business line should affect the companies goals or visions, but instead, the business line she fit into its existing business strategy.
Ahmed A. Alkaysi says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
EA effort could fail multiple ways, some of which are listed below:
1. EA can fail from the beginning. If there isn’t a good strategy in place, EA will not be optimized properly. The result will be wasting a good amount of resources, both human and financial.
2. Another way EA can fail is by having people doing the wrong jobs. Even with a strategy and framework in place for EA, if the right people aren’t doing the right jobs, then it will ultimately defeat the purpose. The EA goals and objectives will not be met.
3. Without a vision, the business will get nowhere. Business needs a clear vision in order to properly implement an EA framework that will help augment this vision. What are the business’ objectives? A proper IT framework cannot be implemented if the business’ vision and objectives are hazy.
4. Even with a proper EA in place that is aligned company’s vision and strategy, there needs to be Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set to provide proof that the EA in place is working. Without these indicators, how do we ultimately know that EA is working as designed? KPIs will help provide feedback on aspects of the EA need to be improved, whether it is business objectives not being met or low IT system performance. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2014/08/07/enterprise-architecture-dont-be-a-fool-with-a-tool/#6e93083445f1)
5. EA can fail if there isn’t proper documentation in place. There needs to be documentation that describes the structure, framework, IT systems, etc… This documentation needs to be approved by business stakeholders and the controls team.
4. Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
Of the four levels of the FEA framework, I believe that Business Architecture is the most important. When there is a proper Business Architecture that “represents the business functions, of the organizations and the information it uses” in place, the IT infrastructure can be built optimally to accommodate it. How can the Data, Application, and Technology infrastructures be built if we don’t have a clear idea on what the “business functions” are and what “information” that business uses? The latter three all feed into the first level, which is Business Architecture.
I feel like either Applications or Technology architecture is more addressed. At work, we rarely talk about the Business architecture. Although I work in IT, I think it is important to see the different areas of business and how they are using our IT systems. When I first started as a Business Systems Analyst, I didn’t even know what parts of the business my team supported, not until we had a requirement that impacted our system that ultimately impacted Business. There needed to be better integration between technology and business, maybe a diagram or something of the sort that shows exactly parts of our systems business uses.
Richard Flanagan says
Ahmed,
Can you tell us more about who the “right” people would be to work in EA?
Ahmed A. Alkaysi says
Hi Rich,
I believe the purpose of EA is to integrate IT with business. When I look at it this way, it will require people with ability to see how the systems work together, maybe someone with IT background, to serve the many business functions. These people also need to understand how the business works, and how these systems will ultimately satisfy the objectives of the business. Not to mention, they will also need to understand IT governance and controls, otherwise they will implement an EA that might not be compliant.
A person that doesn’t have these skills won’t be able to implement EA effectively. Someone with only a business background, won’t be able to understand what is required from the perspective of IT, and how the systems work to be able to solve the business problems. Vice-versa, an IT person with no business acumen might be able to build an integrated system that serves many different functions, but ultimately not what the business needed. I would say the “right” people are those with multiple different skills and knowledge, and not someone completely one-dimensional.
Andres Galarza says
Ahmed,
For what it’s worth, the chapter (section 3.5) from this weeks ‘s reading has a breakdown of who should participate in the “EA Development Roles”:
– EA coordinator
– Enterprise architect
– Technical architects
– Other IT roles, (system programmer, business, analyst, IT manager, etc)
Richard Flanagan says
Ahmed,
I like how you put it. Good business IT people are rare though. Some companies try to create them by rotating people in and out of IT. I myself rotated between IT and the business four times during my career. It gives you a much broader perspective as well as credibility with some in the business.
My other suggestion is that you should include the possibility of someone from the business with an engineering or technical background may want to rotate into IT. They will know the processes really well and can learn the technology quickly. In our business process support group (within IT) only half of the people had IT backgrounds the rest were business professionals from the processes involved.
Loi Van Tran says
Ahmed,
You’ve made a good point about having the right person, doing the right job. One of my best experience as an intern at Lockheed Martin was having the opportunity to work with both, the technical and business groups for systems integration projects. The most important thing that I walked away was that not too many people are good in both fields, but if you can find two managers that able to communicate in the same “language” to lead, then your on a good path to creating an effective EA.
Andrew P. Sardaro says
Ahmed,
I agree that Business Architecture is the most important level in the FEA model. That is not to say that the other levels are not Important, but I just see them in a supportive role towards the business process and goals.
I also feel that working in IT defaults my view towards Technical Architecture as being most addressed. While performing daily supportive operations, it can be easy to lose focus on the end result of my work, the business reason for my work.
1. Business architecture—Describes the processes the business uses to meet its goals
2. Application architecture—Describes how specific applications are designed and how they interact with each other
3. Data architecture—Describes how the enterprise data stores are organized and accessed
4. Technical architecture—Describes the hardware and software infrastructure that supports applications and their interactions
Mengxue Ni says
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
In order to understand the goal of having an enterprise architecture, I think we need to understand what is an enterprise architecture first. An EA is a conceptual blueprint that defines the structure and operation of an organization (WhatIs.com). For example, Microsoft’s Michael Platt offers a view of EA as containing four points-of view, called the business perspective, the application perspective, the information perspective and the technology perspective. Under each perspective, it has more detailed related information. Like technology perspective defines the hardware, operating systems, programming and networking solutions used by organization.
Therefore, the goal of having an enterprise architecture is giving you an overlook of the whole organization. But still it is very detailed. It provides following functions (some are from the video):
1. Identify architectures and areas of the organization
2. Develop a vision of the enterprise
3. Manage business transformation activities
4. Improve coordinating between departments
5. Select opportunities and solutions
Link: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/enterprise-architecture
https://ingenia.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/the-purpose-of-enterprise-architecture/
Jason Wulf says
Hi Mengxue,
I like your idea of different perspectives. When explaining complex concepts, it’s great to garner the perspectives of the audience. When I was in my business doctorate program, they hammered into me the idea of identifying the audience and simplifying complex subjects. I’ve found that executives have short attention spans and are usually overwhelmed.
Anonymous says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
• Managing Enterprise architecture in a cost cutting environment
• Not enough support from C-level (CIO and CFO for example) so that EA is not given enough status and expectations cannot be fulfilled in practice.
• Not integrating Enterprise architecture with the business strategy in a way so that it meets the goals
• Managing Enterprise architecture in an outsourced environment
• Not enough EA awareness among interested parties inside the organization. EA not a generally accepted concept in daily business activities.
Deepali Kochhar says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
• Managing Enterprise architecture in a cost cutting environment
• Not enough support from C-level (CIO and CFO for example) so that EA is not given enough status and expectations cannot be fulfilled in practice.
• Not integrating Enterprise architecture with the business strategy in a way so that it meets the goals
• Managing Enterprise architecture in an outsourced environment
• Not enough EA awareness among interested parties inside the organization. EA not a generally accepted concept in daily business activities.
Sean Patrick Walsh says
I like your second and last points, and think they are both intertwined with each other as well. Getting C-Suite buy-in on just about anything in a business is key, but it doesn’t just end there with their “okay.” If the C-Suite doesn’t fully understand the significance of something, EA in this case, then chances are they won’t actually “sell it” themselves through the company beyond a memo maybe. On the other hand, having those high level personnel fully understand the importance of EA could get them to become its greatest sellers and marketers throughout the business which helps build that awareness and culture needed for the success of things in businesses. That point is where I see it overlap with your final point. I believe the more the high level and management believe in, support, and sell a concept the stronger the awareness is in the driving personnel behind it throughout the production and operation elements of a business. I would think it is very rare that changes happen at a company from the bottom-up rather than the top-down. Even in a “Kaizen” environment, the management has to get the employees to understand they are empowered to recommend and implement change because the employees just don’t do it themselves on whim.
Loi Van Tran says
You brought up some good points Sean, and those two points definitely tie together. I just wanted to point out that aside from the C-Suite being responsible to make the organization “aware” of the purpose of EA, it’s should also be EA who should market their presence. They should be able to iterate the value that they add to the organization, although it may sometimes difficult to show the tangible benefits of having an EA within an organization. That is why it would be important to have the right person, doing the right job. I believe that in the book, one of the EA coordinator’s responsibility was to report on the the performance of EA project to higher management, If this is done with somebody that has no business acumen, then a C-suite executive may not “buy-in” to how EA is actually helping the organization.
Folake Stella Alabede says
yes, i also definitely agree with the second and last point.
I think there should be more awareness, and EA should be a generally accepted concept in daily business activities.
EA should also be given enough status so expectations can be fulfilled in practice.
Said Ouedraogo says
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
An enterprise architecture is a conceptual blueprint that defines the structure and operation of an organization. It is the “map” on which the company builds an effective IT infrastructure. EA is driven by strategic goals and business requirements. The goal is to bring business and IT together in order to reach the organization goals.
EA has some benefits like promote productivity,reduction of redundant processes, better decision making and low costs. However, to be effective, an EA program must be part of a group of management practices that form an integrated governance structure.
Kevin Blankenship says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
Enterprise Architecture is a “blueprint” that is used to effectively allocate resources and processes between the IT organization in support of business functions. The goal of EA is to create a cohesive IT organization that responds to business strategy with effective technical solutions.
Creating an effective EA helps the IT organization become more responsive to business units, run more efficiently, and share resources, which leads to lower costs.
Sean Patrick Walsh says
I like your analogy of EA being a “blueprint.” A blueprint is something tangible that can be seen, and by looking at one a person is able to discern what things are, where they start and end, and how each system is intertwined with the others. Since EA is about aligning the functions and processes of a business to reach its goals it helps to visualize that EA is essentially all of those things in a blueprint. The idea of a blueprint also helps describe a the concept of a baseline well too. By getting the business to match an EA framework baseline is akin to getting a project to match its blueprint. Once the business has reached the EA baseline analysis can be done next on how to improve and move beyond the minimum.
Kevin Blankenship says
Thanks Sean. You expanded on my phrasing very well and made it even more clear for me! I appreciate the input. It does help to expand and improve once the baseline is met.
Ivy M. McCottry says
Kevin and Sean, today I reviewed the EA for a project at work and noticed objectives such as coordinating a long-term road map, assessing near-term architecture, establishing a baseline of the current state, and defining/allocating/interpreting requirements across the enterprise which is pretty consistent with the idea of a blueprint for EA and what you’ve shared.
Yu Ming Keung says
1 What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
An enterprise architecture is technical capabilities needed to serve the business today’s and future need. An enterprise architecture provides a roadmap of the enterprise based on the IT strategic plan and is a route planner for business and technology change.
More generally, an enterprise architecture can provide the following functions for a business:
1. simplify the enterprise
2. operation improvement,
3. cost reduction
4. align of technology operation to the business wants
5. align of the enterprise components evolution to strategy
6. analyze business models
7. create an an enterprise wide transformation project portfolio
8. guide decisions and investment
Professor Yeoman’s Section
Source:
http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ea_matters/2013/02/the.php
Alexander B Olubajo says
2. If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
A firms decision to add a new line of business affects it enterprise architecture in different ways.. When a firm acquires or adopts a new type of business, especially one that is different from the current business processes used/adopted within the firm, the decision of whether to tailor existing IT processes and architecture currently used by the firm or to develop new processes and architecture for that new line of business is a very crucial and important one to make. Which ever approach they decided to take, the firm’s enterprise architecture or IT department must be heavily involved prior to making that decision and should not be solely made by the executive senior leadership team.
A way the firm’s enterprise architecture will be affected is on the subject of the amount of time, effort, money (allocated budget) etc., it will cost them to integrate the system infrastructure, and business processes and solutions that will be utilized by the new line of business with the current existing one being adopted by the firm . As much as the firm may be aware of ensuring they efficiently manage the amount of resources used, enterprise architecture will have its services/resources heavily relied on during this stage which could result in risking other businesses of the firm.
Xiaodi Ji says
Alexander,
I agree with your idea that get a new different company is a challenge for the enterprise because all of their system may now for them. Enterprise need spend much time and many people in learning that and then they can add it to the exist system or improve them. In this process, I think the most fearful things is losing development or maintenance documents, which will case a series of risks.
On the other hand, combination of two companies in the same field also can cause terrible things. Both staff have their own faith for the future of this field. In this time, if we require other company follow our rules, it will lead a company battle because everybody thinks their things or tools are the best one. If manager cannot solve this problem, it will put negative mood in their heart. They may do some bad thing for the enterprise, such as write some bugs of back door in the program or sell the sensitive information.
Therefore, we may should pay more attention about not only in technology or business, but we also should take care of the feeling of employees.
Alexander B Olubajo says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
There are many possible ways/reasons why an enterprise architecture effort could fail as there are often organizational considerations or barriers that could hinder the prevalence of its effort however, it first and foremost starts from the individuals associated and/or working with the enterprise architecture team of that organization. The individuals that make up the enterprise architecture should have people skills as it is essential in order for EA to be successful. Being technical savvy isn’t just enough as these individuals must possess great communication skills, be knowledgeable on the business, and be great decision makers. An enterprise architecture effort could fail if it just addresses the technical aspect of the architecture and neglects to pay serious attention to the business side of things.
Other possible ways an enterprise architecture effort could fail are:
— Appetite: This refers to what an organization can support or is willing to support. If an organization’s principle is to prefer to buy software rather than build it, then proposing a solution that involves building the software may be contrary to what the organization can support. Also, the politics within the organization will need to be considered when dealing with appetite.
— Maturity: Another way an enterprise architecture effort could fail is when an organization isn’t mature enough to adopt new technology. Often do enterprise architecture have progressive ideas for moving their organization forward with more advanced concepts or architecture. However, the organization may not be ready for those ideas/change due to factors like education, infrastructure and software capabilities therefore, condemning all efforts made by EA.
— Buy-in: In most cases, if there isn’t managerial ties to enterprise architecture and the personnel they are trying to influence, it becomes increasingly challenging for enterprise architecture to accomplish their goals or a possibility for their efforts to fails (depending on what side of the spectrum you want to view it). Obtaining buy-in from internal organization on IT strategies, projects, or their participation on key activities can be daunting.
— Resources: Enterprise architecture projects needs resources like personnel, budget and financing in order to be successful in their efforts. Even after convincing upper-level management on an IT strategy, funding the cash or personnel to support can be difficult to realize and since enterprise architecture spans across the enterprise, there are resources needs not only from that business owner but from multiple functional areas within the organization. When resources are not properly allocated an enterprise architecture effort could fail.
— Influencing current or existing projects: Getting in on the front end of a project is one thing, but influencing a project already in motion can be very difficult. In an ongoing project, teams are often reluctant to take an EA’s input or will bypass EA efforts because of the potential impacts to timelines and incurred cost that changes to their architecture may have.
Richard Flanagan says
Alexander,
I really like you list of problems. You illustrate the problems of driving EA from an IT organization very well. Your point about “maturity” really resinated with me. This gets back to tone, I believe. EA works very well in a highly discipline company whether centralized or decentralized. What you call maturity I call discipline. If there is no discipline in the company EA is dead in the water. They may do great work but no one will be able to implement it.
Yang Li Kang says
1. Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
The FEA framework is a US Government standard which is used to facilitate shared development of common processes and information among US Federal agencies and other government agencies.
The four levels of Federal EA model are:
1) Business Architecture – Represents the business functions of the organization and the information it uses
2) Data Architecture – Defines how data are stored, managed and used in a system
3) Application Architecture – Consists of the logical systems that manage the data in the data architecture and support the business architecture
4) Technology Architecture – Describes current and future infrastructure (hardware and software) that supports the application systems in the application architecture.
I believe that all four levels are important because they are all interdependent on each other. However, depending on different perspectives one level might be deemed more important than others. For example, from a business perspective, Business Architecture will be the most important level because it drives the other 3 levels to the organization’s goal. On the other hand, federal organizations that are dependent on keeping data and information confidential might deem Data Architecture most important.
It seems that based on recent news, Data or Application Architecture is most addressed. News of data breaches and information theft are always making headlines.
Yes, this makes sense to me. Confidential data and information should never be made available to people who are not authorized to have them, especially government data and information. The breach or theft of government information could result in national safety concerns.
Source: Kyriazoglou, Chapter 3
Richard Flanagan says
Yang,
Security has been an under developed part of most enterprise EA’s. That has been changing in the past few years but there is still a long way to go. That’s one reason, MIS 5214 Security Architecture, is a required course in this program.
Janet Yeomans says
Yang Li,
Your answer is very thoughtful. I suggest that business architecture is most important since it is at the heart of enabling business success. Meanwhile, in practice, technology architecture seems to garner most time and attention. There are so many alternatives that organizations can spend a lot of time wandering around among the trees without a good view of the forest.
Nathan A. Van Cleave says
4. Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
Of the 4 levels of the FEA framework, Business Architecture, Data Architecture, Application Architecture, and Technology Architecture, I view Business Architecture the most important. As we are learning, it is imperative that IT’s strategy appropriately aligns to the priorities of the business. A key point to this alignment is understanding the specific needs of the organization and the specific information is utilizes.
As those needs are shared, documented and organized, the other levels begin to take shape. I don’t imagine that it is a linear process. You will have many stakeholders and SME’s involved in the entire process especially as an organization needs to define the data, application and technology levels or the organization.
Nathan A. Van Cleave says
5. Does your firm have an EA? How does it affect your day-today decisions?
My current company does have an expansive EA. As a global pharma company with various revenue streams, manufacturing, R&D, local operating companies, etc, the needs of the business vary widely. So for instance, the IT processes around R&D business processes, where projects centered on drug discovery or formula modulation could take several years to complete, the requirements for a project and portfolio management system would be much different than pharmaceuticals where projects are not typically longer than a couple years.
I encounter EA throughout my daily activities from how I should write business requirements, manage incidents/service requests, IT organizational structure, and the method of organizing, cataloging, and managing global IT applications and assets.
Richard Flanagan says
Nathan,
I can’t wait to hear your comments about R&D and next week’s reading on “Governance Archetypes.” I worked five years in R&D an it was the most unique environment I ever came across.
Ming Hu says
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
Enterprise architecture (EA) is a discipline for proactively and holistically leading enterprise responses to disruptive forces by identifying and analyzing the execution of change toward desired business vision and outcomes. (def Gartner)
It can provide: a) a clear understanding of entire systems architecture, including business processes and IT infrastructure; b) models of the future state, which illustrate what the enterprise should look like across all viewpoints in support of the business strategy; c) a road map of the change initiatives required to reach that future state; d) the requirements, principles, standards, and guidelines that will steer the implementation of change initiatives
Alexander B Olubajo says
4. Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
I think the Business Architecture is the most important of the four levels of the Federal EA model. My reason for this is primarily because business architecture lays down the blueprint for the entire enterprise, providing a common understanding of the organization, while aligning strategic objectives of the organization. The business architecture is probably the backbone in which the other models/frameworks follow and are being built/constructed upon. The way I see it, if the business architecture for an organization is not defined, it will be difficult to define, structure, and implement the other models (i.e Application, Technical, and Data architectures) because they don’t wouldn’t know their functions, that is, what business goals/objectives are they providing solutions for. It is however still possible for the other models to exist in an organization without the business architecture defined or in place, but I just don’t foresee that enterprise properly functioning.
I would say the technical architecture model is the most addressed and it makes sense it’s rightfully so.This is because the technical architecture deals with defining how these hardware and software infrastructure and solutions will be effectively applied to execute the business objectives and goals (i.e business architecture).
Alexander B Olubajo says
5. Does your firm have an EA? How does it affect your day-today decisions?
The firm I work for has an Enterprise Architecture (EA), popularly recognized internally as the “enterprise infrastructure” team within the IT department. As an IT software specialist, I work within our Engineering IT organization – an internal organization that provides both hardware and software support for the systems and applications used to design, develop, test, and deploy our products. From my day-to-day activities, I can attest to the fact that our enterprise architecture definitely does affect the decisions I make. Whenever myself or other members of my team are tasked with standing-up an environment for the deployment of a new application or tool, we have to be conscious of and conform to certain standards that have already been laid down by enterprise architecture. An example will be integrating one of these applications with the company’s corporate/central LDAP server. I ensure that no local account exists or is being used on that systems. This is a standard that was developed and enforced by enterprise architecture.
In general, as I approach my day-to-day tasks, the standards set by the enterprise architecture team plays a significant and key role in the decisions I make towards accomplishing those tasks.
Andres Galarza says
Alexander,
I’m learning about LDAP in a different class, so your example is cool to see. Thanks for sharing your real-world experience regarding how EA affects your day-to-day activities. Is the general attitude of your peers within the company that EA is a good idea, or is it seen as something of an annoyance?
Anonymous says
Andrew,
I thought no one would ever ask. Since this class, and specifically this question involves sharing our individual real-world experiences, I will be quite honest in regards to your question. For me and my peers (based on the feedback I have gotten from them) we necessarily don’t see them as an annoyance because we do understand they are doing there jobs and for IT to function well there has to be some form of governance and standards that should be practiced, which they try to enforce. However, it’s their approach that annoys us. Our issue with EA is that they seem to have these policies that they want us as part of IT to adhere to but they don’t do a good job of communicating them or “why”. Then, when we set off to do something our own way, they push back wanting to re-architect or question every direction we take. EA has a model but they don’t really share it, so we never know what it is until we start asking questions.
Nonetheless, I still believe EA in a company is a good idea and their function is important, unfortunately it just happens to be one of those things that tends to be annoying when it directly affects your day-to-day activities.
Alexander B Olubajo says
I apparently wasn’t logged in when I posted my response to you question.
I am curious on what led you to ask this question though. Have you had a similar experience with EA in the company you work for?
Kevin Blankenship says
I also had to learn and work with LDAP for a recent project at work. That was quite an experience. EA came into play very similar to the way Alex said.
Each environment we set up had controls on access and user groups based on existing business LDAP groups. There are standards and controls we have to comply by.
Richard Flanagan says
Alexander,
Do you have any visibility as to how the EA is set and how it is aligned to current and future business needs?
Alexander B Olubajo says
Professor Flanagan,
Unfortunately I don’t really have visibility as to how the EA is set in the organization I work for. However, I do believe it ‘s more geared towards the business’ current needs as opposed to its future needs. The reason I say this is because I know in recent years when my organization has acquired a couple companies, after the merger has closed, EA works to setup infrastructure and solutions to integrate the new companies IT business systems with ours, It seems their focus is mainly on current business needs and little on future needs.
Binu Anna Eapen says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
Ans: Enterprise architecture controls, enable and supports the alignment of IT with the business functions and support successful execution of the daily activities and operational transactions of the IT System.
The purpose of the EA controls is to enable, control and facilitate:
a. The establishment of the entire IT governance framework
b. The good alignment between corporate strategy and IT strategy
c. The accomplishment of the strategic goals by the provision of optimal IT services.
d. The continuous support of the critical business functions by IT system and infrastructure on an efficient and effective basis.
Source: IT Strategic and Operational Controls, by John Kyriazoglou,, Chap 3
Andrew P. Sardaro says
2. If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
Having an effective EA in place that accounts for business flexibility allows you to evaluate the risk addition of a new line of business and determine the impact on your current EA.
Some evaluation items would include determining if your current IT systems can handle the acquisition? Ae you acquiring legacy systems where training will be involved or hardware/software replacements are needed? Will you have to implement new IT solution altogether? Does the new line of business align with your current business strategy?
Not having a well-established EA could prove to be costly when acquiring a new line of business.
If your EA is flexible to changing business needs, you will be able to add a new business line while adding value to your business.
Richard Flanagan says
Andrew,
Did you notice the order of your example questions? Three IT questions first and then the business question. I know you didn’t really mean it but it is a great example of how “Doing Things Right” can unconsciously jump ahead of “Doing the Right Things.”
Mansi Paun says
Q3 Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
=> Some of the ways in which an Enterprise Architecture could fail are :
o Missing or poor IT governance and poor stakeholder involvement
o Absence of the right Lead Architect who is upto speed on the latest offerings in the EA space and a motivated team that can function as one team
o IT goals/IT strategy not being aligned with Business goals/business strategy
o Insufficient research(remember the Dentdel case?) and due diligence not being done along with poor risk assessment and risk planning which could lead to being unprepared for failure of any kind and eventually wrong risk response in the face of a failure
o Failing to foresee the need of the EA to be scalable and flexible in future too and not just serve the need of the hour as IT systems are evolving at a fast pace. What could be a great solution today could be redundant in a years’ time if it offers no flexibility.
Kevin Blankenship says
Good callback to the Dentdel case. I definitely agree a lack of research hurt them.
Joshua Tarlow says
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
Enterprise architecture (EA) enables a company to manage its IT resources effectively. It must balance the need to resolve immediate issues while still allocating resources to more strategic and long term development and innovation. Every company has current objectives and needs and long term goals and often one comes at the expense of the other. From my brief experience, it is short term issues that are more paramount and the longer term planning and work that is sacrificed.
I remember one example from my second internship, which was in business intelligence in an insurance company. My area was information delivery, but I worked next to the data architects and had many conversations and long term improvements that needed to be made to the databases. There many legacy systems and databases created over decades, with each new one adding a new layer complexity. Obviously this issue made many functions more difficult and prevented others. Many were aware of the issues and did want to address it, but projects kept coming up. When I was there, the department decided to make a large push to develop a cyber product, which eventually consumed a lot of resources. As a result a lot of other work was pushed aside to meet the deadlines for this project. In the short term, it was more beneficial to finish the cyber project, but longer term improvements to the databases would have been invaluable. I’m sure many other companies have similar issues, but there is definitely value with creating of streamlining databases and creating a more centralized databases. Would have been a lot of work to audit every database, including the data dictionary and the impact each data-set could have on others, but it certainly would be worth it for long term strategic objectives.
Xiaodi Ji says
Joshua
I like you example which we can find in many companies now. I think in most companies, many manager or database manager want to improve their database because whatever how great they were, now the structure or system should redesign or replace. However, it is very hard to change it because all are running and recording data. Thus, even they know there are masses in the system. They cannot take some action to improve it. However, it will also make more problems. Does your company find effective way to solve this problem now?
Ahmed A. Alkaysi says
1.What is Accenture’s core IT philosophy?
Accenture’s core philosophy was to treat IT as a business. Instead of looking at IT as merely a cost center, Accenture looked at IT as a means to generate value to the core company.
Accenture’s primary strategy for managing IT, was to use a “one-platform” approach. This approach optimized IT costs and by sourcing applications from the same vendor, provided the company with the ability for information to flow between its systems “seamlessly and in real time.”
Under this strategy, Accenture tried to keep any customization of its platforms to a minimum. In order to customize any of its systems, there needed to be two criterias met. One, the system was critical to the business and two, there was no vendor available to supply it.
By staying true to this philosophy, Accenture was able to reduce IT costs by needing less “specialists” to run the applications, outsourcing IT needs to low-cost locations, and by leveraging its own Global Delivery Network (GDN) and Infrastructure Outsourcing group (IO) to work on Accenture’s IT functions.
2. Identify three key IT projects from the 2001 – 2008 period and explain how each strengthened Accenture’s enterprise architecture?
Accenture tried to outsource as many IT related activities as possible. Three key IT projects that Accenture underwent were converting its back-end IT operations through Microsoft, using SAP for the financial and human resource operations, and using virtualization for its e-mail server.
Using Microsoft for its main IT platform allowed the company to remain flexible and scaleable. Microsoft provided many technologies for Accenture. Microsoft NT was used for the network server, SQL used for any data related activities, and Outlook for the e-mail client. By using Microsoft, Accenture was able to reduce 400 Novell servers to 50 Microsoft servers, as well as increasing the amount of users per each e-mail server.
Using SAP as the ERP system allowed an ‘all-in-one’ system to financial management. Due to GAAP standards and regulatory requirements, Accenture needed an integrated approach to financial management, and SAP provided this. SAP offered a web-enabled system, flexibility, greater reporting, and ability to integrate “finance organizations and with other critical corporate functions.”
Using virtualization for its e-mail functions reduced the e-mail servers from more than 250 to 115. This also allowed Accenture control the costs of e-mail capacity by providing three level of storage needs for anyone that needs it.
3.What measures of success did Accenture use for this effort? Why?
Accenture was able to run its IT program by using an ROI approach. IT projects were not approved Projects would not approved unless there was a clear ROI analysis conducted and it shows that it will provide value to the company. For any project that a business wanted to undergo, a sponsor needed to go in front of C-level executives with the ROI analysis, and there would be a debate to see whether or not the project would be accepted. After 3 years, an audit would be conducted on the accepted project, to see if the ROI was met and whether or not ROI would need to be altered for future projects.
This method provided a couple benefits. First, there would be no more lobbying needed in order to get a project approved. Second, it provided a way to measure whether or not the project was successful. By having an audit done every 3 years, it would keep the managers on their toes making sure they are able to meet the ROI. It would also force them to find creative means to cut costs.
Jianhui Chen says
Enterprise architecture is an ongoing business function that help an ‘enterprise’ solve the problem about how to execute the strategies that drive it development. EA is designed to define and communicate the relationship between the key elements of the business to support effective decision making.
The goal of the Enterprise Architecture controls is to enable, control and facilitate: 1.the establishment of the entire IT governance framework. 2.the good alignment between corporate strategy and IT strategy. 3. the accomplishment of the strategic goals by the provision of optimal IT services. 4. the continuous support of the criteria business functions by IT system and infrastructure on an efficient and effective basis
Source: IT strategic and operational controls, John Kyriazoglou, Chapter 3
https://prezi.com/vk2btk1h9e1o/enterprise-architecture-overview/
Fangzhou Hou says
Question: What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
According to the definition of the Enterprise Architecture (EA), it defines the structure and operation of an organization. An effective enterprise architecture should help to determine how an organization can effectively achieve its current and future objectives.
More importantly, an effective Enterprise Architecture can better help the organization to achieve:
– Increasing the return on business and IT investments by more closely aligning them with business needs.
– Identifying areas for consolidating and reducing costs
– Improving executive decision making
– Increasing the benefits from innovation
– Delivering strategic change initiatives
– Managing business transformation activities
Sources: https://ingenia.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/the-purpose-of-enterprise-architecture/
Loi Van Tran says
What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
An enterprise architecture helps the organization understand their own structure and the way they work. It provides a map of the enterprise and helps business leaders make decisions on business and technology changes.
The goal of an enterprise architecture is to enable and support the alignment of IT with the business functions of the organization. The purpose of EA is to ensure, enable, and facilitate:
1. The establishment of the entire IT governance framework
2. Alignment between the corporate strategy and IT strategy
3. Accomplishment of the strategic goals by the provision of optimal IT services
4. continuous support of the critical business functions by IT systems and infrastructure on an efficient and effective basis.
Paul M. Dooley says
The goal of having an enterprise architecture is to closely align the the business objectives and goals to the IT departments. It creates a common goal among all lines of business. This is done by creating and/or utilizing an existing framework that allows the IT department make decisions with the overall business objective at hand when trying to leverage new systems, infrastructure, and technologies to assist the company become more efficient, operate more cost-effectively, or enable customer’s to increase customer satisfaction. These are accomplished by creating a set of common processes, standards, structure etc. I believe it is spelled out the best by IFEAD in which it states that enterprise architecture is “a master plan which acts as a collaboration force between aspects of business planning, such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles; aspects of business operations, such as business terms, organisation structures, processes and data; aspects of automation, such as Information Systems and Databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of hte business, such as computers, operating systems and networks.” (IT Governance, John Kyriazoglou, Page 3).
Wen Ting Lu says
Q: If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture?
A: addition of a new line of business would affect enterprise architecture in several ways. First of all, the overall organizational design and processes should be altered. This means that the previously constructed designs should be altered in some ways, in order to make up for the changes. Secondly, the decision making process and prioritization of investments should also be adjusted in order to adapt to and optimize profits. Similarly, the new line of business would frequently need a update of the system. In some extreme cases, some extra proper documentations might also be needed.
Noah J Berson says
The goal of Enterprise Architecture is to effectively support the enterprise by creating common processes, technology, and information layers. The IT part of the EA is effective when its goals align with the business strategy, executives love how agile the technology is, and IT assets are optimized for cost and speed. Some process related goals for enterprise architecture to stay focused on are if the technology helps the rest of the business with agility, and if there are efficiencies that are being re-used through the enterprise.
As IT complexity keeps increasing, it’s important to make sure you are focusing on enterprise architecture. Ignoring it can lead to costly reworks and slow expansions. Letting the EA team have more responsibility while still tracking performance can lead to business goals being met.
Jaspreet K. Badesha says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
1. The goal of having an enterprise architecture is to have IT strongly integrated and aligned with all parts of the business and business strategy. It is to “To aid the formulation of a strategic plan, IT managers find it helpful to adopt an enterprise architecture framework to define, organize and structure technology and application and staffing requirements in support of a company’s strategic goals.” This can be done through operational productivity, optimization of business processes, and mas customization.
Neil Y. Rushi says
In my company, there is an EA in place. The EA isn’t based on technology but on pharmacy. The management set the policies and rules for how to help patients, secure patient information, dispense the correct medication(s) and allow the business to adapt with the new rules and regulations for the industry. As a pharmacy technician, I am required to follow HIPPA by disposing of patient information. Also, I was trained to make sure I follow the rules for processing insurances and if the NDC code for a medication is different, it’s my duty to make sure I change it and then resubmit to the insurance. This helps to ensure that the pharmacy dispenses the correct medication to the patient and leaves a proper audit trail for insurances. Another part of the pharmacy’s EA is making sure we adapt to the new policies implemented by the pharmacy industry. Management relays the new rules to everyone and makes sure we follow it.
Sheena Thomas says
Thanks for your write up I never really thought about EA outside of the scope of Technology.
Jaspreet K. Badesha says
2. If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
The firm will need to adjust their enterprise architecture to ensure that its IT is implemented to be integrated and aligned with that the new line of business and align IT with their business strategy. Unless that happens they will not be able to efficiently do certain business processes. The organization will have to realign their organizational structure, policies and their overall business strategy and ensure that IT aligns with it.
Candace Nelson says
1.What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The goal of having an Enterprise Architecture is to establish a method for IT to interactively and efficiently support business needs from a strategic and dynamic perspective to enable the organization to readily adapt to changing technological circumstances (e.g. regulatory, market) in order to remain viable and competitive.
Daniel Warner says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The goal of having an enterprise architecture is to give a common direction to business processes, data and technology, which is driven by corporate strategy. The enterprise architecture team and framework needs to anticipate factors that could disrupt the corporate strategy, and map out the path current situation of the business and the future plans accordingly. Also, by establishing the corporate strategy as the driver for IT infrastructure and process, the EA can mitigate risk due to the purchase of products that won’t help won’t benefit the company’s mission.
Daniel Warner says
Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture could fail.
1. If the Enterprise Architecture Coordinator is not not fit or prepared for the position. The Enterprise Architecture Coordinator has a huge role. The Coordinator needs to define scope, supervise, and also communicate to the stakeholders. If the coordinator cannot do this effectively then the direction that the enterprise architecture takes may not align the business context and IT. The infrastructure needed to align with the business may not occur if the coordinator does not communicate the needs of the business to IT side.
2.The Enterprise Architecture team does the majority of the crafting
This can be problematic for a team that has engaged senior management, but then decides to do the majority of the scoping for the enterprise architecture. If the EA team decides to lead and scope all of the content then the infrastructure that if created may be off target. The EA team needs to lead what has been decided and not impose.
3. Setting the scope and the goals of the enterprise architecture too high.
It is best to work in steps when creating enterprise architecture and to prioritize. Setting up an infrastructure that aligns corporate strategy with IT takes time and the EA team will need to communicate with the stakeholders along the way. If a goal seems like it cannot be accomplished than its best to communicate that to the stakeholders.
4. If the Business side is not engaged effectively:
The EA team needs to link communication between the business side of the company and the IT department. If the EA team does not adequately involve the senior management and understand the business strategy then the steps taken for IT alignment will not be accurate, and may just be reactionary.
5. Making decision based off of the current situation
To establish an effective enterprise architecture the team needs to look towards the future. If the enterprise architecture if only focused upon fixing and updating the current situation and is not focused on what can happen for the future within the business context, its probable that what is decided upon may not work for the company
Candace Nelson says
3. Explain five possible ways that an enterprise architecture effort could fail?
I first considered this question from the perspective of what can help an enterprise architecture (EA) implementation succeed:
• Aligning IT and business goals and requiring participation from both sides of the business to ensure the end product satisfies the needs of both groups.
• Having sponsorship from Senior Level Executives is critical to the success of an EA implementation since IT alone may not have sufficient authority, leverage or credibility to obtain necessary funding or foster cultural changes (e.g. adopting new ways of doing business).
• Ensuring the level of funding and resources is sufficient to complete the task on time, and that there are no incentives to sacrifice quality in order to achieve or exceed time or cost budgets.
• Making sure the person(s) hired to implement EA have all the required skills, and replacing them if/when it is determined that they are ineffective.
• Developing various communication channels throughout the organization to engage all stakeholders and keep them apprised of the projects status, including meetings, blogs, newsletters, etc.
Conversely, EA efforts could fail if the business and IT goals are not aligned and the groups don’t participate jointly in the implementation, if the efforts are not supported by Senior Executives, if there is insufficient funding or resource allocations, if the EA Lead Architect is ineffective, and/or if there is insufficient communication about the project and its status throughout the organization.
Candace Nelson says
4. Of the four levels of the Federal EA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
I work for a company whose primary customer is the Federal government. From my perspective, Data Architecture is the most important level as it defines data storage. Since the need for security over proprietary government data is paramount on so many levels, it is critical that this asset be appropriately safeguarded.
Technology architecture receives the least attention and spend, as is evidenced by outdated government hardware and software, and related systems and processes. It does make sense to me since it could be more cost effective to build new systems than to re-engineer the existing ones, but it is unlikely the required funds would be dedicated to this initiative unless it is mandated or in response to an incident (unfortunately).
Daniel Warner says
2) If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
a) If a firm decides to add a new line of business they will have to look into the existing enterprise architecture of the business they are acquiring if it’s a merger or evaluate their own enterprise architecture to check for flexibility if they want to build a new line of business from the ground up. From here, the firm can see if they can leverage all of the current infrastructure to accommodate the new line of business or increase their IT assets for structuring this new venture.
Daniel Warner says
4. Of the four levels of the Federal FEA model which do you think is most important? Which is most addressed? Does this make sense to you?
• Out of the four levels of the Federal FEA model (Business, Application, Data, Technical) I would say that the Business Architecture is the most important. What makes an Enterprise Architecture work is how the IT infrastructure is aligned within the context of the business. So out of the four levels I’d say that Business Architecture is the most important because establishing the goals of the business act as a foundation for EA. In my experience, I’ve seen the technical architecture addressed most frequently. Some of the companies I’ve worked with have put a lot of emphasis on gaining a technical edge, which is important, but then haven’t communicated the importance of the new technology/applications to the employees (which has led to some employees finding work-arounds). It makes sense to me to have the Business Architecture level drive the enterprise architecture.
Sheena Thomas says
2.If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
With a new line of business, the EA may need to first understand the new line business and what technology it will take to support the new line of business.
Can the current architect support the new line of business? Or do they to purchase new technology and/or have developers code software to support the new line of business.
What is the growth potential for this new line of business?
Sachin Shah says
Very well put as the firm needs to understand if this new line of business actually fits into their current EA. At that point they need to do a cost analysis of adding this new line of business and profitability. If the whole EA has to be changed or reorganized than it may not be worth the idea to introduce a new line of business.
The other option in this scenario is to introduce this line under a different business or subsidiary. Think of GAP clothing, introducing Old Navy, and instead of fitting affordable clothing under GAP. Instead a new entity was created where a new line can be introduced and a EA can be created to accommodate it and its future.
Sheena Thomas says
1.What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The questions below really helped me to get the full scope of the roll and goals that an EA person has within an organization.
“Enterprise Architecture helps organizations ask and answer the following types of questions:
• Does the current architecture support and add value to the organization?
• Will future changes to the architecture still enable it to support and add value to the organization?
• Can the architecture be modified to add additional value to the organization?
• Will the current architecture support or hinder future organizational goals?
• Will the current architecture support or hinder the organization’s future strategic direction?”
(Source: http://innovategov.org/2015/04/08/basics-of-the-federal-enterprise-architecture-framework/)
Sachin Shah says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
I believe the goal of Enterprise Architecture is to provide an ideal landscape for how a organization should operate and manage. Part of this blueprint includes the technical piece that sets the standards of the IT department, infrastructure, and technologies to operate efficiently in the present and future.
Management can make decisions based on the architecture or framework. In my company we have network architects, data architects, and database architects in the IT department alone. The handle the architecture of those components, whereas the EA is based upon the entire organization. I work in healthcare and it is important for the data to be integrated and secure due to HIPPA policies and patient information. Hence management needs to create standards or EA to address those aspects accordingly.
I feel EA is more based upon business needs and requirements and what is needed to operate reliably. It is lest technical and more management and profit oriented. If there is no archtecture, than there is no blueprint and no vision either. Hence the organization is basically making random decisions without a backbone or understanding of resources or capabilities.
Ivy M. McCottry says
1. What is the goal of having an enterprise architecture?
The goal of having an enterprise architecture is about stewarding IT resources for alignment with business goals in a manner that helps achieve the enterprise’s strategic goals. The Accenture case provided a good example of how high level decision making influenced the purpose and tempo of the IT organization. The result was the actual pursuit and implementation of IT activities that helped achieve strategic goals whether it was vendor risk management or far-reaching cost efficiency.
Ivy M. McCottry says
2. If a firm decides to add a new line of business, how might it affect its enterprise architecture? Explain?
A new line of business will affect a firm’s enterprise architecture in so much that the new line affects 1) enterprise strategic goals and 2) enterprise technological architecture (especially elements relevant to strategic goals). I’ll use AT&T’s acquisition of DIRECTV as an example. In doing so, AT&T acquired new capabilities by way of new technologies. As a large telco company with legacy systems and newer systems, the company has to account for the role and relevance of DIRECTV to enterprise architecture juxtaposed to current and desired states to truly extract value for shareholders beyond brand building.
Ivy M. McCottry says
5. Does your firm have an EA? How does it affect your day-today decisions?
I see iterations of EA at work in day-to-day operations when we develop solutions for customers. At a high-level, senior leadership sets expectations for strategic objectives for the solution and customer requirements influence both the objectives and technology side. What we propose and implement is ultimately EA (policies, processes, people, systems, software) for achieving strategic goals and the technology that reinforces/enables strategy goals. We typically have leadership from a solution architect who has a unique balance of strategic expertise and deep technological knowledge.
At the enterprise level, I found that we use TOGAF for some of our customers and have enterprise-wide business units that have their own EA. I pulled the following EA goals from a particular R&D group for a strategic product/service:
-Define target architecture
-Identify services/systems that enable target architecture
-Develop roadmap to achieve business goals
-Create solutions with long-term value (accounting for total cost of ownership)
-Align activities with stakeholders across company