The question bothering me recently has been, what is the point of enterprise architecture? Is it to govern specific large scale transformation projects, like a government ministry's etransformation project, or a bank's core accounting replacement project? or is Enterprise Architecture the goal in itself? i.e. the establishment of an EA office, procedures, goals, standards, architecture board, Architecture principles etc. and embedding it into the organizations phyche.
The definition of EA that I like, and there are many out there, is that "EA is a method to help organizations turn strategic plans into operational realities". If this is truly the goal, then EA is not the only method to achieve this, Project Portfolio Management (PPM) also claims to to help organizations turn its plans into realities by determining the optimal resource mix for delivery and scheduling activities to best achieve them. This is not necessarily exactly the same thing but with a little tweaking it can be made to serve the same purpose.
My view is that applying an EA methodology to a single project has limited benefit for a firm, though large scale projects can benefit from the discipline enforced in the design phase of EA. The real benefit for a firm comes from the standardization of technologies and the agility this inspires. EA should help firms do the right things and do things right, a cliche, but an apt one. This again is limited by the fact that Architects aren't always invited to business startegy discussions.
Most people don't believe EA is technical discipline, and I tend to agree with them, but technology has tinged the way architects work. Most of the architects I know have technical backgrounds, when was the last time you met someone who had an accounting degree and claimed to be an Enterprise Architect?
What we need are more people from business backgrounds moving into the role.
The definition of EA that I like, and there are many out there, is that "EA is a method to help organizations turn strategic plans into operational realities". If this is truly the goal, then EA is not the only method to achieve this, Project Portfolio Management (PPM) also claims to to help organizations turn its plans into realities by determining the optimal resource mix for delivery and scheduling activities to best achieve them. This is not necessarily exactly the same thing but with a little tweaking it can be made to serve the same purpose.
My view is that applying an EA methodology to a single project has limited benefit for a firm, though large scale projects can benefit from the discipline enforced in the design phase of EA. The real benefit for a firm comes from the standardization of technologies and the agility this inspires. EA should help firms do the right things and do things right, a cliche, but an apt one. This again is limited by the fact that Architects aren't always invited to business startegy discussions.
Most people don't believe EA is technical discipline, and I tend to agree with them, but technology has tinged the way architects work. Most of the architects I know have technical backgrounds, when was the last time you met someone who had an accounting degree and claimed to be an Enterprise Architect?
What we need are more people from business backgrounds moving into the role.
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