Enterprise Architecture

Journal of Enterprise Architecture August 2012

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Available very soon: August 2012 – Volume 8, Number 3 of CONTENT Editor’s Corner John Gøtze introduces this number. Architect in the Spotlight: Eric Stephens John Gøtze interviews Eric Stephens. Enterprise Architecture, IT Service Management and Service Oriented Architecture: relationships, approaches and operative guidelines (part 2 of 2) Carlo Randone Enterprise Architecture, IT Service Management (and Governance) …read more

The Journey from Visibility to Governance to Standardization to Reuse

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Firms need to have a single picture to guide their efforts, to build a “foundation for execution” as described in Enterprise Architecture as Strategy[1].  It is not enough to have a single picture of the vision, mission and strategies of the firm.  Firms will need to decide what business processes need to be standardized and what data need to be integrated.  There is no right answer, but not having a common picture will mean that different parts of the firm will be building to their own visions.

However, I noticed through my interviews with CIOs that not many companies had this single picture.  In fact, on probing further, some of them were not able to provide a high-level, organization-wide view of their organizations’ processes.  As such, I postulated that organizations must mature through two stages before they can get to the standardization (and integration) stage. 

Even star war troopers need mirrors!
photo credit: Kalexanderson
Firstly, they need to firstly establish an organization-wide, regularly updated view of the current situation in their organizations.  This is akin to individuals looking into the mirror to decide what to change about their appearances.  Similarly, organizations need visibility into their current state before they can decide what to standardize and what to leave alone.  This is not a trivial exercise, especially in large organizations.  Creating a current view from scratch can take months; keeping the view updated as the organization changes is an even bigger challenge.

Can you tell if something is out of line?
photo credit: chekobero
Second, organizations also need to have strong governance processes in place, so that changes to existing processes and data are channeled through a common approval body.  How can any organization standardize unless all changes and new initiatives are checked against standardization requirements?  In many of the organizations I studied that had mature EA practices, the organizations had strong governance in place.  The Enterprise Architecture team was involved in approving new business initiatives, to ensure that the initiatives are not deviating from the organization’s standardization and integration vision.  Without such a governance framework in place, standardization is just talk that has no teeth to be realized.  It is possible for organizations to have strong governance first before having visibility.  However, as mentioned above, organizations will need to establish visibility before they can move into the standardization stage.

Re-use seems to be a long way off for many organizations.  Or is it?  Maybe a iterative approach with fast and short iterations will work?  I will be keen to hear from your experience of standardization and reuse.

[1] Enterprise Architecture as Strategy by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill and David C. Robertson    

The Journey from Visibility to Governance to Standardization to Reuse

by

Firms need to have a single picture to guide their efforts, to build a “foundation for execution” as described in Enterprise Architecture as Strategy[1].  It is not enough to have a single picture of the vision, mission and strategies of the firm.  Firms will need to decide what business processes need to be standardized and what data need to be integrated.  There is no right answer, but not having a common picture will mean that different parts of the firm will be building to their own visions.

However, I noticed through my interviews with CIOs that not many companies had this single picture.  In fact, on probing further, some of them were not able to provide a high-level, organization-wide view of their organizations’ processes.  As such, I postulated that organizations must mature through two stages before they can get to the standardization (and integration) stage. 

Even star war troopers need mirrors!
photo credit: Kalexanderson
Firstly, they need to firstly establish an organization-wide, regularly updated view of the current situation in their organizations.  This is akin to individuals looking into the mirror to decide what to change about their appearances.  Similarly, organizations need visibility into their current state before they can decide what to standardize and what to leave alone.  This is not a trivial exercise, especially in large organizations.  Creating a current view from scratch can take months; keeping the view updated as the organization changes is an even bigger challenge.

Can you tell if something is out of line?
photo credit: chekobero
Second, organizations also need to have strong governance processes in place, so that changes to existing processes and data are channeled through a common approval body.  How can any organization standardize unless all changes and new initiatives are checked against standardization requirements?  In many of the organizations I studied that had mature EA practices, the organizations had strong governance in place.  The Enterprise Architecture team was involved in approving new business initiatives, to ensure that the initiatives are not deviating from the organization’s standardization and integration vision.  Without such a governance framework in place, standardization is just talk that has no teeth to be realized.  It is possible for organizations to have strong governance first before having visibility.  However, as mentioned above, organizations will need to establish visibility before they can move into the standardization stage.

Re-use seems to be a long way off for many organizations.  Or is it?  Maybe a iterative approach with fast and short iterations will work?  I will be keen to hear from your experience of standardization and reuse.

[1] Enterprise Architecture as Strategy by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill and David C. Robertson    

Management Information for Managing Innovation

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Management information is not particular difficult to produce, it is difficult to make use of. Management information can be produced in quite a few ways and supported by quite a few methods, but too much management information will eventually clutter the line of sight of the decision makers and as such work against holistic management. […]

Rules, principles, belief and faith

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Following on from the previous post ‘Rules, principles and the Inverse-Einstein Test‘, there’s an important corollary about real-time sensemaking and and decision-making – it was in my notes for the post, but I forgot to include it, so I’ll do…

Architecture Styles

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This article is also available as a PDF document. Could businesses benefit from applying different architectural styles to design systems in different areas of the enterprise, just as cities apply different architectural styles for designing Cathedrals, Town Halls, and Bazaars? Applying different architectural styles would practically imply that when designing a system for finance we […]