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 stakeholder 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 start 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 in 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 what 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 torn open.

After decades of operation, the city became big and old, we need modernize the city via planning.

Say, now we have a well-established city with all the components such as chool, shopping center, hospital., etc  to convenience the local resident,  however, you can't build up the competitive differentiator by focusing on those infrastructure 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 envision the future, architect the changes, to deliver unique, competitive edge with strong governance discipline.

3.     100 Words about EA’s Biggest Problems

·         Definition: though we have many nice quotes above, but 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 the change with speed: To become the change you want to see in the world. Gandi

·         Maturity: 55% of organization’s EA is at level 2: Ad Hoc, only less than 1% reach the level 5: exemplary

From collective wisdom via 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-Influene-Governance-Contengency-Prioritization-Creativity-Credibity-Maturity

 Knowledge-Enablement-Identity-Flexibility-Competence-Scope-Scalabity-Deliverable-Bridge-Education

Synchronization-Commitment-Consistence-Predictability-Adapability-Implementation-Customer-trust-Wisdom-Worth

Kaizen (Improvement)-Process-Semantics-Biology-Clarity-Visibity-Contribution-Measureability-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-arrogrance-Castle

Pleonasm-Indecision-Fear-Invalidity-Propensity-Politics-Puzzle-Technocentrism-Compartmentalization-Chaos

4.     Ten Purpose of EA

·         To recognize the transformation before it’s too late

·         To Establish a business requirement focused new blueprint

·         To determine how an organization can most effectively achieve its current and future objects.

·         To keep 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 simulation that can provide a mean to see the cascading effect when the change made in 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 via 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 21^st century modern organizational culture

Does EA make 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 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 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 future will architect the imaginable growth wings for their organization.