EA Glossary: The App

Don’t understand what the architect is talking about? There’s an app for that!
EAGlossary.com is a free web app for looking up enterprise architecture terms and definitions.
Get the app: Via webbrowser on your tablet/mobile, add eaglossary.com to the home screen.
Sources are EA3, The Common […]

Learn How Enterprise Architects Can Better Relate TOGAF and DoDAF to Bring Best IT Practices to Defense Contracts

Chris Armstrong, president of Armstrong Process Group, discusses how governments in particular are using various frameworks to improve their architectural planning and IT implementations in a podcast with Dana Gardner. Mr. Armstrong will be speaking at…

Cybersecurity Threats Key Theme at Washington, D.C. Conference – July 16-20, 2012

A preview of the upcoming Open Group Conference in Washington, D.C. – July 16-20, 2012. More information can be found here: http://www3.opengroup.org/dc2012 Continue reading →

Telltale Signs of Organizations with Strong EA

Footprints on fresh snow
(photo credit: dru!)

Walking on fresh snow is one of my favorite activities, as I enjoy leaving the first footprints in the soft, fluffy snow.  My impact on the snow is evident to those that come after me.  What impacts should EA have on organizations?  What do EA’s footprints look like?  Here are answers from three authoritative sources, on tell tale signs that an organization has effective EA.

1. Clarity on Long-term Plans

The book “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy” believes that enterprise architecture help organizations focus on building strategic capabilities, instead of constantly being distracted by immediate needs. It does that by providing a long-term view of an organization’s processes, systems and technologies [1].  This clarity works hand-in-hand with strong governance to help organizations achieve future states they desire.

Following on this point, EA should also enable organizations to have clarity on current capabilities.  Without this clarity, organizations end up building capabilities that they already have, or capabilities that are not supported by their existing processes, systems and technologies.

2. Strategic, Responsive and Cheap IT 

CIO.com sees that enterprise architecture makes IT cheaper, more strategic and responsive, and help promote alignment, standardization and re-use of IT assets [2].  This builds on the clarity mentioned in the previous point, such that IT works on what matters, is positioned for the future and designed to maximize reuse and reduce duplication.

3. Agile

Gartner sees enterprise architecture as a change enabler by “by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution.” [3]  In a way this is similar to #2, but this brings the impact beyond IT to the entire organization.

Other Impacts?

What other impacts should EA have?

References

1. Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, David Robertson
2. Enterprise Architecture on CIO.com, http://www.cio.com/topic/3020/Enterprise_architecture
3. Gartner’s Definition of Enterprise Architecture, http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/enterprise-architecture-ea/

Telltale Signs of Organizations with Strong EA

Footprints on fresh snow
(photo credit: dru!)

Walking on fresh snow is one of my favorite activities, as I enjoy leaving the first footprints in the soft, fluffy snow.  My impact on the snow is evident to those that come after me.  What impacts should EA have on organizations?  What do EA’s footprints look like?  Here are answers from three authoritative sources, on tell tale signs that an organization has effective EA.

1. Clarity on Long-term Plans

The book “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy” believes that enterprise architecture help organizations focus on building strategic capabilities, instead of constantly being distracted by immediate needs. It does that by providing a long-term view of an organization’s processes, systems and technologies [1].  This clarity works hand-in-hand with strong governance to help organizations achieve future states they desire.

Following on this point, EA should also enable organizations to have clarity on current capabilities.  Without this clarity, organizations end up building capabilities that they already have, or capabilities that are not supported by their existing processes, systems and technologies.

2. Strategic, Responsive and Cheap IT 

CIO.com sees that enterprise architecture makes IT cheaper, more strategic and responsive, and help promote alignment, standardization and re-use of IT assets [2].  This builds on the clarity mentioned in the previous point, such that IT works on what matters, is positioned for the future and designed to maximize reuse and reduce duplication.

3. Agile

Gartner sees enterprise architecture as a change enabler by “by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution.” [3]  In a way this is similar to #2, but this brings the impact beyond IT to the entire organization.

Other Impacts?

What other impacts should EA have?

References

1. Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, David Robertson
2. Enterprise Architecture on CIO.com, http://www.cio.com/topic/3020/Enterprise_architecture
3. Gartner’s Definition of Enterprise Architecture, http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/enterprise-architecture-ea/

Interoperability and interresponsibility

(This one’s somewhat exploratory, so perhaps pardon me if I ramble a bit more even than usual here?) Reading Dion Hinchcliffe’s excellent post ‘Enterprise Social Networks Need Open Standards‘ left me pondering on the whole thorny issue of interoperability, and

The Cloud is in the cloud

This one’s another follow-up from the model-development session with Stuart Boardman last Friday, and relates to a different way to understand the often over-hyped Cloud. [I hasten to add that most of what follows is just a minor elaboration on an

Using the ‘This’ game in EA modelling

A great session last Friday with enterprise-architect Stuart Boardman, using his Metropolis thought-experiment as a live test-case for my still somewhat-experimental ‘This’ game for service-modelling. Stuart developed Metropolis as a worked-example for service-modelling at very large scale – the scale of