Oh My God! Enterprise Architecture is like thunder rolling down the mountain!

It’s common sense to understand that if we want to create a complex object we have to be able to describe it. If we can’t describe it, we can’t create it. Further problem is if we want to change what we have created, we must have to have the descriptive representations in order to do so. If we don’t, we may be able to change it, but it may involve risks and we may do the wrong thing, plus lose what we created entirely. The whole idea of architecture comprises two things: one for creating a complex object and one for change.

So, how to define “Architecture” and “Enterprise Architecture”?

John Zachman defines “Architecture” in general is a set of descriptive representations that are relevant for creating an object, operating an object, changing an object. He defines Enterprise Architecture as a set of descriptive representations of an enterprise, required for creating, operating, managing and also changing an enterprise. The idea is to have a set of cohesive models that describe the structure and functions of an enterprise.

One of the key aspects of Architecture Award initiative is to know the maturity and adoption of Enterprise Architecture by the organizations worldwide, how serious are they in implementing EA?, what kind of problems being addressed? What are the results etc.?

Starting this year, we have added one more category of award called “Enterprise Architecture”. The nominations for this category are chosen from the existing nominations. We have looked at nominations,  have already initiated EA journey. As part of evaluation, we have tried to understand whether the implementation has successfully demonstrated the effective utilization of strategy, business, systems, technology, implementation and operational models in coherence to ensure enterprise growth and success.

It’s interesting to note the key drivers behind EA initiatives, challenges faced, results achieved by some of the organizations like CXS, Dell, Dubai Customs, Deutsche Bank and SBI General Insurance etc.

At CSX, establishment of the Enterprise Architecture function provided more clarity around the end-state vision of their business application systems.  Additionally,  they have a better understanding of the investment requirements and benefits of delivering them.  The major challenges faced in implementing CSX’s Enterprise Architecture program included establishing enterprise goal congruence, aligning architecture transition states with the sequencing of application development programs, and elevating the architecture discussion beyond the current year’s capital plan.

At Deutsche Bank, a series of initiatives with the aim of creating greater connectivity, processing efficiency, industrial strength systems and complexity reduction are being brought into convergence. Key to this success is the active change leadership practice that is being driven by our Enterprise Architecture teams.

As part of the EA initiative at Dubai Customs, future operating model of the organization is created to show the management where exactly Customs would be by the end of 2010 and 2015. Once the future operating model was created and
agreed upon, the AS-IS business architecture of the selected business operations units was created. After careful analysis of the AS-IS business layer a TO-BE future state architecture was also created and mapped against business objectives and future operating model.

SBI General Insurance (Joint Venture between the State Bank of India (SBI) and Insurance Australia Group (IAG) has embarked on Enterprise Architecture journey from very beginning. This has resulted in turning the organisation into “Information driven organisation” with the Deputy CEO taking the accountability of the information assets and the
IT Solution as “information-centric” that is supported by technology.

I am delighted to review the Dell’s Enterprise Architecture Merger & Acquisition Integration Strategy which has been  already used for the eight acquisitions, concluded during the first year of the  initiative.  Interestingly, earlier  1000 + individual documents for each merger are replaced by 30+ process assets of  today.

Some  of the observations:

1. There is growing acceptance of Enterprise Architecture by CEO and the BoD. The primary business drivers behind the establishment and continued evolution of the Enterprise Architecture functions are strongly driven by loss of business and very high operation costs. The rise of  product  complexity, the expansion of  business  and the pressures to  increase volume  has also resulted in EA driven  transformation.  The severity of failures of services, speed and costs to market, are some of the other reasons why EA has made its way to  the board room.
2. The complexity in the “electronification” of the global marketplace will not go away; it’s only going to increase.
3. The  shift  from  business-silo  to  function-alignment,  requires  a  significant  cultural  shift  in  the  way organization  operate.  For  example,  project teams  can  no  longer  simply  think  of  delivering  specifically  to one  asset or opportunity,  they  must  consider the wider implications and  opportunities  to  the  enterprise.
4. Silo mentality has to go away at each level of transformation be strategy, business,  systems, technology, implementation or operation
5. It’s important to have a buy-in from management about the future operating model before you define you TO BE Architecture
6. Still, one of the major challenges is lack of clearly defined corporate strategy. One business objective alone results in having a large number of sub-objectives.  When tracked down to achieve the objectives  one can discover that EA has a major role to play as the realization of these objectives  has  their  roots  in the  business  processes, across the departments, business units, partners, suppliers etc. It will be  impossible  to meet  these  objectives without having a single repository (of objectives) for the entire organization.
7. EA is critical in solving business silos first, before attempting to resolve IT  silos.
8. More efforts and insights are needed to establish linkages between strategy and  underlying technology & implementation realities
9. An organisation that is consistently better at exploiting IT to drive newer and better products and services stands to gain a considerable business advantage.  IT has played a powerful role for last few decades; this role has become proportionally greater over time. Of course, for the foundation of EA, the business architecture forms the first building block and trickles down to influence all other components (models).
10. CEOs love the idea of Enterprise Architecture, its common sense they say

Oh My God! Enterprise Architecture is like a thunder rolling down the mountain.

I wonder why some friends are still suffering from ”alphabetical diarrhea“  in various discussion groups about “Why enterprise architecture?”. Move over, let the fresh breeze come in.

Related articles

• What are the different award categories, nomination in multiple categories allowed? (sunilduttjha.wordpress.com)
• Launching a new survey to know how mature is architecture adoption! (sunilduttjha.wordpress.com)
• Key observations while going through the nominations for the iCMG Architecture Awards (sunilduttjha.wordpress.com)
• iCMG Enterprise & IT Architecture Excellence Award 2011 competition! (sunilduttjha.wordpress.com)
• Architecture related expenses & investment are categorized in to CAPEX or OPEX? (sunilduttjha.wordpress.com)