Saturday, August 3, 2013

EA as an Enterprise Navigator: Analyze, Model & Influence

Businesses need EA as GPS to navigate, bridge, facilitate and establish.

EA is not a management role but it must be able to advocate and communicate effectively with business leaders; it also enables the organization to navigate from strategy to execution.

So is EA an analytical role? Where does EA add value to an organization? Where should EA provide value? Does it add value that is not already provided in an organization by a strategy group, by an organizational development group, by business innovation and transformation group?





  1. Businesses need EA as internal consultant to analyze, model, explain and communicate:
    • Analyzes and models the business, at a strategic level, accounting for all strategic influences and factors.
    • Uses its models and analysis to develop scenarios for moving the business closer to its goals.
    • Works with business executive management and other stakeholders in order to understand the various influences and strategic factors.
    • Explains and communicates its analysis and scenarios to executives and other stakeholders, using terminology and modes of communication that they can understand and relate to.

  2. Businesses need EA as GPS to navigate, bridge, facilitate and establish. Many of today's EA can play an important role in helping managers to analyze business choices in a holistic manner, that accounts for business agility, indirect sources of value & cost, and technical compatibility (which affects agility)
    • Enable everyone in the organization to see the whole by mapping the enterprise. 
    • Enable everyone in the organization to know the parts by managing the enterprise knowledge. 
    • Apply architecture and engineering in business practice. 
    • Facilitate collaborative culture. 
    • Establish enterprise agility in adapting to change via taking advantage of technology evolution. 
    • Close the gaps between strategy and execution. EA is a critical body that bridges the gap between what is required and how it is implemented
    • EA carries high-level accountability for compliance and provides important input into the feasibility and appropriateness of policies that have a direct impact on the architecture. They then work with implementers to ensure they provide solutions that move toward compliance. 
    • Enterprise Architects are not the "Guru" to architect a frozen enterprise blueprint in a command and control approach, but a “glue” to bridge the silos. 
  1. Businesses need EA as “producer” to design, cultivate, enhance and support 'management capabilities'. EA is proposed as adding value to the development of strategy, then the EA capability is being proposed as an enhancement or strengthening of the management capability is known as strategy development. EA doesn't get to own accountability for the success of the strategy. That belongs to management and will remain their accountability, but EA needs to take a fair share of reward or blame on the decision they make. And that accountability is multifaceted, it’s EA ability to influence, and offer value, with respect to each facet of management's responsibility EA is impacting.
a) Strategy development
b) Organizational development
c) Business change management (including associated investment decisions)
d) Quality management
e) Risk management
f) Portfolio Management
g) Program Management
h) Project Management
i) Business Management (or product line management .. with P/L management)
j) Product Management (customer products and services)
k) Process Management
l) IT Management 


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