Sustaining Enterprise Architecture
How to implement an "organic" approach
Companies have tried for years to improve business agility with information systems and technology, and Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a key to unlocking the real potential of information technology. However, architectural improvements have typically been undertaken in one domain (e.g., technology) or even sub-domain (e.g., networks) at a time. Under these conditions, architecture too often defaults to simple product selection, and too often the result is fragmented and temporary local improvements at the expense of long-term architectural coherence, cost, and enterprise value.
Sustainable Enterprise Architecture is about taking a comprehensive view, not only of the three domains of business, information, and technology, but also of the forces pushing them to change. These include the forces of changing customer requirements, changing business processes, and emerging technologies. Business or industry-specific forces (economic, regulatory, competitive) and events (especially a merger or acquisition) can be very disruptive for EA. And architecture must also evolve with the shape of technology services - how the IT organization configures technology resources and services for consumption by the business and its customers. EA involves anticipating these forces and, insofar as possible, "harmonizing" their effects on business, information, and technology architecture. That's no small challenge when the forces are strong, independent, and often divergent.
There are no shortcuts to a coherent and comprehensive EA. It takes continuous attention and effort. Attempts at a grand and complete design, or to "fix" the architecture to catch it up to the business, never succeed. Deferring to vendors and building around their embedded architectural designs can be cost efficient, but no vendor has an off-the-shelf Enterprise Architecture because no vendor is anticipating or experiencing the business forces that your enterprise is.
EA must be aligned with the business strategy to begin with, but a sustainable and business-enabling EA must do more. Sustainable EA must have a relentless focus on technology's potential to deliver long-term value and on anticipating future business requirements and opportunities. One emerging approach is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), which has the potential to change business processes and systems into a series of loosely coupled, multi-organizational services to create differentiating business models.
In most companies, building EA capability requires acquiring new skills and altering established organizational models. Enterprise architects must be skilled in relationship management and process improvement disciplines to anticipate the potential application of new technologies across the enterprise. Some IT organizations, in committing to major ERP solutions, have "outsourced" their EA - and consequently failed to build or maintain essential EA competencies.
This Re.sults report introduces four frameworks that can be used to understand a business's architectural needs and emphases and provides recommendations on major components of a comprehensive approach to EA processes, organization, governance, and measurement. It also describes the next evolutionary step for EA, the evaluation of and migration toward service-oriented architecture.