BY STUART MACGREGOR

Avoiding the Perils of EA

Enterprise architecture (EA) is more relevant today than ever before. We’re seeing new technologies, new market forces, more competition, and rapidly changing business models coming to the fore.

Together, these present a burning requirement for many organisations to ‘digitise the enterprise’. EA helps to do this by providing the organisation’s leadership with a complete view of its operating models. The benefits include: competitive advantage, business transformation, and to demonstrate commitment to corporate governance, to external stakeholders.

However, so many EA programmes fail to achieve meaningful results. More often than not, they either end up on the scrapheap of failed IT programmes and wasted investments, or limp along with limited and isolated impact within the broader organisation.

So, why do EA programmes so often fail?

Chief Architect

The biggest reason for failed EA programmes is the lack of leadership skills within the EA team. The Chief Architect needs to lead by example, inspire others, and understand the business’ needs.

"The Chief Architect needs to lead by example, inspire others, and understand the business’ needs."

She must also have business acumen, technical skills, the ability to listen, communicate, present to groups, and to ‘sell’ the vision of the EA function to key stakeholders. By convincing people of the benefits, the Chief Architect can generate enthusiasm for the EA practice.

Then, the Chief Architect must clearly demonstrate the results of the EA practice to business stakeholders and executives in the organisation. The EA vision must be constantly reinforced throughout the programme as the practice develops in maturity.

The Core Team

The Chief Architect must be supported by a strong EA team - led by a guiding coalition and steering committee. Having a core EA team which is ill-equipped to deliver is likely to cause the EA practice to stall, or even fail entirely.

The starting point is to understand the skills requirements, and match this with the right people in the right roles. The team environment needs to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing – giving the Chief Architect better visibility of everything happening within the team.

"The goal is to ensure the right portfolio of skills is spread across the entire EA discipline"

The goal is to ensure the right portfolio of skills is spread across the entire EA discipline – people with the right qualifications, tool proficiencies, competencies and personalities are working together in the optimal structure.

Organisational Positioning of The EA Function

With failed EA projects, the origins of many problems can often be traced back to the placement of the EA function within the organisation’s design.

For example, if EA is housed within the area of the Chief Technology Officer then we can expect the focus to be all about technical architectures and solutions support. If it’s positioned under the Chief Information Officer, the focus is often more on supporting solution architectures. Whichever is the case, we find that organisational structure shapes the behaviour and the strategies of the teams.

With failed EA projects, the origins of many problems can often be traced back to the placement of the EA function within the organisation’s design.

For example, if EA is housed within the area of the Chief Technology Officer then we can expect the focus to be all about technical architectures and solutions support. If it’s positioned under the Chief Information Officer, the focus is often more on supporting solution architectures. Whichever is the case, we find that organisational structure shapes the behaviour and the strategies of the teams.

"The organisational design must suit the company’s EA requirements"

The organisational design must suit the company’s EA requirements - and it is important that the EA function spans all of the horizontal EA domains (business architecture, information architecture, data architecture, application architecture and technology architecture) and vertical domains (integration, security and solution architecture).

Organisations are complex organic structures, in a never-ceasing state of flux, brought on by ever changing market pressures. Those organisations that take the wrong approach to establishing an EA practice - or fail to grasp the distinction between ‘simplistic’ and ‘simple’ - often find the practice imploding within a few short years.

So, in summary, it is critical to have the right people, under the right leader (the Chief Architect), working in the right structure within the organisation. Without all three of these things in place, the EA practice is at great risk of failure.

In our next article in this series, we will look at some of the more strategic themes - ensuring that the right vision and direction is in place, avoiding a problem we refer to as ‘Ivory Towers’, and maintaining the support of the strategic, executive stakeholders.

EA Vision, Strategy and Direction

If the guiding coalition fails to establish a clear vision and strategy, the EA function can go wrong very quickly. Projects become misaligned and poorly managed, and the practice withers into something that is neither sustainable nor value-adding.

This strategy needs to emanate from the correct starting point: where thorough stakeholder analyses and capability assessments produce a set of guiding principles that are business-appropriate. This sets the foundation for successful EA.

The chances of EA failure rises dramatically if the organisation doesn’t complete these fundamental steps (including TOGAF®’s preliminary phase), or if it sees EA as an isolated technology project and not a new way-of-working, that must be woven into the DNA of the organisation.

The business executive must empower the EA function with a defined and widely communicated mandate. Failure to do so often results in ‘turf wars’ between the EA practice and related areas of the organisation, such as the Programme Management Office or Service Management.

Ivory Towers

The strategy must be supported by tangible, practical outputs.

There is a risk that architects become overly-enamoured with the conceptual aspects of their work, building complex frameworks in isolation from the business stakeholders ‘on the ground’.

This leads to distorted perspective, where the architect’s views are not necessarily shared by their key stakeholders. Architects that look to force their models on the business without fully appreciating their requirements are at the greatest risk of alienation and ultimate failure. We refer to this as the ‘Ivory Tower syndrome’.

"Architects that look to force their models on the business without fully appreciating their requirements are at the greatest risk of alienation and ultimate failure"

An overly-academic approach to EA also leads to inertia in decision-making, where the fear of failure leads to an inability to act. Successful architects follow the principle of “publish or perish” - which describes how critical it is to deliver tangible outputs timeously.

Executive Sponsorship

By becoming too conceptual, the team risks losing the support of the C-Suite executives. In order to retain executive sponsorship, the EA practice needs to address the burning issues that dominate boardroom discussions.

"...to retain executive sponsorship, the EA practice needs to address the burning issues that dominate boardroom discussions"

To build on early momentum, EA education and communication should filter down from above as one of the organisation’s highest priorities. This helps to foster business stakeholder engagement and ensure that EA content is used in the right ways “on the ground”.

Executives are also able to remove many of the obstacles that could otherwise bring on the demise of EA in the organisation. Executive sponsors may be called on to influence budgets and vendor selection, or make the necessary structural changes to the teams, or ensure that corporate governance remains firmly on the agenda.

Thoroughly addressing these strategic considerations puts the EA practice on much firmer ground. However, it is not necessarily enough to sustain a vibrant practice. In our next article, we’ll explore some of the other common causes of EA failure (and show you how to avoid them). We’ll touch on the areas of teamwork and collaboration, change management, and communication.

Collaboration

EA, like many emerging disciplines, is developing quickly – new approaches, tools, standards, languages and metrics arrive at rapid pace. Without a collaborative environment, staffed with individuals who revel in this ever-changing landscape, the EA practice is at risk of stagnating.

"We recommend creating a culture of open collaboration - where content flows to the right people in a secure and coordinated way"

We recommend creating a culture of open collaboration – an environment where content flows to the right people in a secure and coordinated way.

When EA practitioners collaborate and better manage their content, knowledge coordination kicks into gear, leading to productivity improvements and a more satisfying and engaging work environment.

The opposite of this is an ugly (and all-too-common) situation: fragmented documentation, multiple instances of SharePoint all over the organisation, information housed on local hard drives, discordant sets of data, and poorly-maintained content - a dysfunctional state of affairs that any EA should seek to avoid.

Change Leadership

An organisation’s EA practice can trip itself up by not ensuring its activities are embedded within a comprehensive change leadership strategy.

All too often, change management efforts are performed in ad-hoc bursts of activity, usually in response to immediate crises. This is a recipe for failure. Change management must be dealt with in a planned and sustainable manner, as a key part of the EA approach, and needs to be an integral part of everyone’s way of working.

"Its crucial for the team to become true change leaders - inspiring those around them, and propelling the practice forward"

It’s crucial that the Chief Architect develop her team to become true change leaders - inspiring those around them, and propelling the practice forward.

Successful change leadership encourages key stakeholders in the organisation to participate. By continually measuring and communicating EA successes, stakeholders see the value of their own time-investments, and feel a greater sense of reward for getting involved.

By focusing on change leadership, the EA team is more likely to grow its mandate and influence, and stands a better chance of winning better business (for example, being asked to tackle new projects within the organisation).