The Success Criteria of Enterprise Architecture Initiatives

EA programs would be successful if it supports the evolving business strategy, enabling strategic goals cascade, meeting the stakeholders ‘needs, and making continuous deliverables.

Enterprise Architecture has three layers - abstract, logical, and physical. The criteria of the EA initiative success relies heavily on how the business vision and goals are aligned and mapped to the architecture and design components across domains and eventually to the implementation.

In practice, there are very low success rates of EA projects to satisfy customers. EA may even have trouble identifying loyal customers besides enterprise architects themselves. To evaluate EA maturity, Enterprise Architects and other business leaders should ask themselves and others thought-provoking questions such as: Ideally, how many architecture domains an Enterprise Architecture should encompass to address all business needs? What are the success criteria of EA initiatives, and what are tools or mechanisms to steering success?

EA is measurable: EA as a type of upfront analysis would not only let you measure the impact of EA, it would also help you steer the program to drive maximum benefits in the right direction. EA is not a one-time action that solves the problem, it is building capabilities that are leveling organization to a higher level of management maturity. So, check what assets you will provide and look at what will be benefits - Return On Assets. EA is measurable. By factoring some assumptions from risk/rework reduction into NPV/probabilities approach, it is possible to illustrate the costs and benefits that might have been achievable on past projects with different approaches to planning.

The business management should expect EA to have a clear calculation of ROI, gaining both quick wins and long term benefits. It is like any planning activity, Enterprise Architects need to make a business case to use EA, do the ROI analysis for each initiative that comes under its purview. Applying the insight gained from EA exercises would then allow a reasonable degree of confidence in the order of magnitude of benefits achievable by using an EA approach on future propositions.

EA has deliverables: Enterprise Architecture aids in the transformation from strategy to plan and acts as an assurance of the quality of the strategy and contributes to improved quality of the strategic planning. Doing EA is a journey, but the stakeholders want to see value delivered. For example, the one-page current state diagram & the one-page future state diagram. Gap Analysis: Identify current state, future state, compare the actual performance with the potential performance, Etc. Those deliverables can be used in the next phase of architecture work. The higher likelihood of success, lower risk of failure, earlier delivery of outcomes.

EA deliverables are at a high level and will add more granular details as diving deep into specific domain architecture at low levels. EA can create a comprehensive capability map, then use it to drive portfolio management, heat map analysis, etc. When you put these deliverables 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. Although it cannot be sure that EA deliverables are universally accepted, at least, they should benefit decision-makers or other EA users/customers with a tangible result.

EA is supposed to cover all areas of the business: The enterprise architectural framework helps to define a very flexible business blueprint, cover all areas of the business, with the abstract components (components = different artifacts) including such as capabilities, functions, roles, events, rules, data, services, processes, goals, objectives, events, performance, market/locations/geographies, risk, resource, etc. Digital leaders can apply an architectural framework to perceive their business with both a broader scope of abstraction and an in-depth understanding of its interconnectivity and interdependence. As the EA initiative is taken up mostly in a top-down approach, many of these initiatives will be abstract as it is derived from the business values and goals set up by the business owners and stakeholders.

The architectural framework that is created also needs to be maintained and used by the managers to adapt and improve the organization in the future by abstracting major concerns such as customer satisfaction, business partner relationship analysis, cost estimations as well as those key elements which can be applied to give a holistic picture of what is working or not in order to allocate capital and resources scientifically and reach the "future statement" in a stepwise manner effortlessly.

The EA framework you take depends on the nature of business and the type of project. Because every business is different, they are at a different stage of its business life cycle, they have their own unique competency to delight customers and gain market shares. EA programs would be successful if it supports the evolving business strategy, enabling strategic goals cascade, meeting the stakeholders ‘needs, and making continuous deliverables.

Posted in: EA,KPIs