Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Re-imagine Enterprise Architecture, Re-energize Enterprise Architect

1.Ten Quotes about EA

Enterprise architecture increases business value by providing direction to shift the optimization point from the project to the enterprise

Enterprise Architecture is a planning, governance, and innovation function that enables an organization to progress toward its vision of its future state.

EA is an effective way to make organizations more efficient and productive.

No matter the EA method, framework or approach utilized, one must eventually ask what, where, when, why, who, and how at every level in order to get a complete and competent EA.

EA is about making a strategy become reality, the true EA has to account for patterns, SWOT& Cultures.

Enterprise architecture composes holistic solutions that address the business challenges of the enterprise and support the governance needed to implement them.

EA should not only bring structure and simplification to complex situations but also bridge the views of the different stakeholders involved.

Enterprise architecture is comprised of many parts, but value and clarity are only realized and gained by understanding the relationship management and traceability of those parts.

Enterprise Architecture is the science of anatomy and physiology of and enterprise.


2. Metaphorical Example of EA Elegance
EA is like City Planning:

When the new city starts emerging, too often we will see new streets that are perfectly fine being ripped open to put in new power lines, or other utilities. Sure a proper street planning seemed overkill if you only have one block of houses. Especially for the residents there, they like to get into the house as quickly and possible. Again, they might think "Hey I don't need city planning, I have all that I need," but they will think of it once new blocks are being built, the power plant has brought outs, new lines are being installed and the street was torn open.

After decades of operation, the city became big and old, we need to modernize the city via planning. Say, now we have a well-established city with all the components such as school, shopping center, hospital., etc, to convenience the local resident, however, you can't build up the competitive differentiator by focusing on those infrastructures only. Let’s imagine to re-invent the City

The city plan could help us perceive the future of city --blueprint the modern City to attract millions of tourists or visitors, to modernize the transportation Systems –the premium airport & airline services, hi-speed rail & freeway, with the landmark building, the amusement park, the scene, and the enforced security regulation, to welcome the potential customers. Same as in the large, legacy organizations, EA needs to envision the future, architect the changes, to deliver unique, competitive edge with strong governance discipline.

100 Words about EA’s Biggest Problems

Definition: though we have many nice quotes above, the next generation of EA needs a unified definition to set up a standard.

Simplicity: EA should be the best practitioner for Albert Einstein’s principle: we should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler

Customer: EA also need practice best management disciplines: “The purpose of business is to create a customer” Peter Drucker

Change: EA should drive and change with speed: To become the change you want to see in the world. Gandi

Maturity: 55% of organizations' EA is at level 2: Ad Hoc, only less than 1% reach level 5: exemplary
From collective wisdom via the online discussion forum, it comes out 100 words to describe EA’s problems:
 Lack of :
Definition- -Pragmatism-Relevance-Change-Communication-Vision-Executability-Acceptability-Speed- Consistence-
Leadership-Value- Purpose-Abstraction-Ability-Imagination-Culture-Discipline--Effectiveness-Focus
 KPI-Governance-Budget-Influence-Governance-Contingency-Prioritization-Creativity-Credibility-Maturity
 Knowledge-Enablement-Identity-Flexibility-Competence-Scope-Scalabity-Deliverable-Bridge-Education
Synchronization-Commitment-Consistency-Predictability-Adaptability-Implementation-Customer-trust-Wisdom-Worth
Kaizen (Improvement)-Process-Semantics-Biology-Clarity-Visibity-Contribution-Measurability-Result-Forward thinking
Consensus-Comprehension-Engagement-Strategy-Web 3.0-Cloud-Apathy-Empathy-Sponsorship-Disposition
 Or:
Ivory Tower-Disconnection-Discord-Idee Fixe-Turf War-Schizophrenia-Emergence-Fragmentation-Gap-Generalization
Complexity- Ignorance-Silo-Ambiguity-Self Contradiction-Legacy-Confusion-Misunderstanding-arrogance-Castle
Pleonasm-Indecision-Fear-Invalidity-Propensity-Politics-Puzzle-Technocentrism-Compartmentalization-Chaos

Ten Purpose of EA

·  To recognize the transformation before it’s too late
·  To Establish a business requirement focused on the new blueprint
·  To determine how an organization can most effectively achieve its current and future objects.
·  To keep the bottom line: designed to support an organization’s specific business strategies
·  To do business process optimization
·  To cut costs and complexity and avoid the pitfalls
·  To get timely & meaningful Business intelligence
·  To provide a basis for the simulation that can provide a mean to see the cascading effect when the change made in the organization
·   To envision customers’ perspective, deliver customers’ outcomes efficiently and reliably.
·   To retain institutional memory and knowledge

5. Re-imagine the Future of EA


The future of EA should be designed by asking:
(1)  Re-imagine EA “in the cloud”
Does Cloud computing make enterprise architecture irrelevant or more critical?

(2) Do-it-self and drag-drop capability
Is EA design as simple as possible but not simpler?

(3)  Cultivate a 21st-century modern organizational culture
Does EA make an impact on organizational culture to lead expected transformation via deep analysis such as gap analysis, impact analysis and BI?

(4) Re-draw  Change Management Roadmap
 Is EA get lost in translation, is EA leading the changes, managing the changes or lagging behind the changes?

(5) Revitalize BA-Business Architecture to delight the customers
Can BA focus on soft-discipline such as customer delight, management best practice to reflect vision, value, and change from the outside-in customer point of view, instead of today’s inside-out

(6)  Reinvent TA-Technology Architecture to optimize the process
Can EA emphasis on hard-discipline such as business process management architecture?

(7)  Frame The Center of Excellence
Can EA blueprint CoE of Legacy Modernization, SOA, Cloud, BPM, BI, Advanced Web, change management to deliver the better result (average 70% of failure rate for these projects)

(8) Enforce Governance
What are the metrics to make EA more visible with simplified and transparent IT Governance, for better decision making and GRC discipline?

(9) Re-discover the data, BIG DATA Strategy
How EA, especially data architecture could help explore opportunities brought up to today’s extended enterprise?

(10) Sustainability Potential
Can EA integrate the sustainability architecture to transform green into the new gold?


6. Re-Energize Enterprise Architect
 The enterprise architect makes influence via the power of knowledge and blueprint of organization.
    The many face/roles of enterprise architect include:

· Big-picture Thinker & Effective Communicator
· Artistic Futurist & Scientific Architect
· Progressive Learner & Good Listener
· Governance Advocate & Customer Champion
· Psychologist & Anthropologist

Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited, imagination circle the world --Albert Einstein The EA of the future will architect the imaginable growth wings for their organization.

1 comments:

Nice article you have been posted, It's very informative and helpful.

Legacy Modernization from Integritas Solutions

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