Five Value-Added EA Deliverables

Identify current state, future state, compare the actual performance with the potential performance.

EA as a communication tool of strategy, the associated coordination and governance across functional organization & business unit boundaries, would provide direction, concepts, "touchpoints" for impact to other areas, synergies, goals alignment, etc. It may indeed be abstract, but EA also provides a detailed conceptual view. However, trying to get C-Level to recognize the significance of EA can be a difficult thing to do. Which artifact or EA deliverable has made the biggest impact in your organization?

1. The one-page current state diagram & the one-page future state diagram. While all stakeholders may not agree on what most needs improvement, they all agree that improvements are needed and become more involved when they can see it clearly. Not only "What," but also need to look at "How" and "When" aspects. Current state assessment could be on different perspectives of EA Transformation initiatives. From an architecture perspective, it involves current IT technology landscape unified 4+1 views which are Functional view, logical view, information view, Business process view, and infrastructure views. This also includes identification of stakeholders, understanding of their preferences, priorities and pain points. Understanding and fine balancing the IT and business priorities, politics also plays a key role! 

2. A Business Capability or Functional Model, when you put this in front of your stakeholders, this is the first time that they have seen their business in terms of its real DNA rather than getting caught up with organizational or divisional boundaries. It also shifts the thinking from "solutions" to the scope of business capabilities or functions that IT has to support. As such,  it is a fundamental artifact for ensuring business-IT alignment. 

3. The biggest impressive artifact should contain the goals and CSFs (critical success factors, especially processes and IT of Enterprise business). The CSFs can assess the current state from the current artifact, and decide the plans of the future from the future artifact and the road map from current to future models. 

4. Enterprise Governance/Capability Model. Use it within IT and across the business. It has been proven as a useful tool in communicating consistently with the organization such as Project Portfolio spend, Operational Risk, Application Inventory, Processes, etc. 

5. Gap Analysis: Identify current state, future state, compare the actual performance with the potential performance. Identify gap, prioritize the gap, list down the factors needed to reach its target state and then plan on how to fill the gap between the two states. This is important because it helps to identify if a company is performing to its potential and if not performing, why it is not performing to its potential

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