1. Why the Need?
EA provides the model of how things fit together at enterprise level
Lack of enterprise planning has led to
-Fragmentation
-Duplication
-Cross purposes
-Risk Silo's
2. What is EA?
Functional Perspective
Planning and managing the evolution of the enterprise IS environment from a current to target state according to certain agreed design principles
-planning role:Translate enterprise and IS strategies into an planning and design Framework
Must be actively involved in IS planning and decision making
-Design role: Develop enterprise and domain solutions for consistency with design principles
-Stakeholder management role: Must engage key business and IS decision makers
Process Perspective
Facilitate transition from current to future state
-Benchmark
-Capability/gap analysis
-Solution design
-Big bang
-By domains-incremental
-Solution based
Q:Why is EA a process?
A:Need to control change because
-Business strategy evolves
-Technology lifecycles and the increasing rate of obsolescence
-New information content and processing requirements
-emerge
-Business partnerships change
-Target markets change
-Decision makers come and go
EA as Process
Architecture is a key component of strategy that takes an organisation from where it currently is to where it needs to be.
Capability Maturity
Mature organisations exercise a disciplined approach to architecture management and governance.
Requisite to this are:
Standard Practices-universally applied
Enterprise Capability
Compliance as outcome of consistency
Zero tolerance towards opt-out
In a mature environment, business excellence and compliance are outcomes of sound work practice including People, Process and Technology elements.
SEI Capability Maturity Model
Initial: Enterprise activities are ad-hoc and transactional in nature.
Repeated: Pilot projects and single activities at Enterprise level.
Defined: Enterprise standards and processes creating efficiencies.
Managed: Creation, sharing organizationally integrated and improved.
Optimising: Developed continuously and is self organised.
Legacy Environments
Problems
-Growing and increasingly unmanageable complexity
-No integrated approach across different customer, supplier, and partner interfaces
-Disparate customer and operational data sources: creating ineffective operations and decision making
-Difficult to integrate back office processes
-Limitations regarding business agility
-Business unit focus not enterprise focus
-Technical driven solutions not business outcomes
-Inability to support corporate systems opportunities
-Information boundaries
The importance of Commitment
It is critical to mandate the Enterprise Architecture initiatives
Critical Success Factors
-Ensure senior executive Buy-in and Support
-Engage senior managers and Business Units/ IS leaders
The Biggest Obstacles
-Commitment of resources for an extended period of time
-EA planning alone could consume 8 or more resources for 6 months
-Chief Architect, Business Analyst, Data Analyst, Application Analyst, Infrastructure Analyst, Domain Specilalist, PMO resource, SMEs
-Adverse corporate culture and the perceived arrogance of IT
-Political differences and deciding who has responsibility for the EA