Create a Right-Sized Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework

Focus on process standardization, repeatability, and sustainability.

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Your Challenge

  • EA governance is perceived as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy because business benefits are poorly communicated.
  • The organization doesn’t have a formalized EA practice.
  • Where an EA practice exists, employees are unsure of EA’s roles and responsibilities.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Enterprise architecture is not a technical function – it should be business-value driven and forward looking, positioning organizational assets in favor of long-term strategy rather than short-term tactics.

Impact and Result

  • Value-focused. Focus EA governance on helping the organization achieve business benefits. Promote EA’s contribution in realizing business value.
  • Right-sized. Re-use existing process checkpoints rather than creating new ones. Clearly define EA governance inclusion criteria for projects.
  • Defined and measured process. Define metrics to measure EA’s performance and integrate EA governance with other governance processes such as project governance. Also clearly define the EA governing bodies’ composition, domain, inputs, and outputs.
  • Strike the right balance. Adopt architecture principles that strikes the right balance between business and technology.

Contributors

  • Alan Mitchell, Senior Manager Global Cities Centre of Excellence, KPMG Canada
  • Ian Gilmour, Associate Partner, EA Advisory Services, KPMG Canada
  • Djamel Djemaoun Hamidson, Senior Enterprise Architect, CBC/Radio-Canada
  • Sterling Bjorndahl, Director of Operations, eHealth Saskatchewan
  • Huw Morgan, IT Research Executive, Enterprise Architect
  • Serge Parisien, Manager Enterprise Architecture, Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation
  • Alex Coleman, Chief Information Officer, Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board
  • L.C. (Skip) Lumley, post-career, formerly Senior Principle at KPMG Canada
  • Tim Gangwish, Enterprise Architect, Elavon
  • Darryl Garmon, Senior Vice President, Elavon
  • Steve Ranaghan, EMEIA business engagement, Fujitsu

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Get to Action

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our Executive Brief to find out how implementing a successful enterprise architecture governance framework can benefit your organization.

  1. Current State of EA Governance

    Identify the organization’s standing in terms of the enterprise architecture practice, and know the gaps and what the EA practice needs to fulfill to create a good governance framework.

  2. EA Fundamentals

    Understand the EA fundamentals and then refresh them to better align the EA practice with the organization and create business benefit.

  3. Engagement Model

    Analyze the IT operating model and identify EA’s role at each stage; refine it to promote effective EA engagement upfront in the early stages of the IT operating model.

  4. EA Governing Bodies

    Set up EA governing bodies to provide guidance and foster a collaborative environment by identifying the correct number of EA governing bodies, defining the game plan to initialize the governing bodies, and creating an architecture review process.

  5. EA Policy

    Create an EA policy to provide a set of guidelines designed to direct and constrain the architecture actions of the organization in the pursuit of its goals in order to improve architecture compliance and drive business value.

  6. Architectural Standards

    Define architecture standards to facilitate information exchange, improve collaboration, and provide stability. Develop a process to update the architectural standards to ensure relevancy and promote process transparency.

  7. Communication Plan

    Craft a plan to engage the relevant stakeholders, ascertain the benefits of the initiative, and identify the various communication methods in order to maximize the chances of success.

Guided Implementation icon Guided Implementation

This guided implementation is a fourteen call advisory process.

    Guided Implementation #1 - Current state of EA governance

  • Call #1: Current state of EA governance.

  • Call #2: Assess current state of EA governance.

    • Guided Implementation #2 - EA Fundamentals

  • Call #1: Develop the EA fundamentals.

  • Call #2: Review the EA fundamentals.

    • Guided Implementation #3 - Engagement Model

  • Call #1: Review the current IT operating model.

  • Call #2: Determine the target engagement model.

    • Guided Implementation #4 - EA Governing Bodies

  • Call #1: Identify architecture boards and develop charters.

  • Call #2: Develop an architecture review process.

    • Guided Implementation #5 - EA Policy

  • Call #1: Develop EA policy, assessment checklists, and decision types.

  • Call #2: Create compliance waivers.

    • Guided Implementation #6 - Architectural Standards

  • Call #1: Understand architectural standards.

  • Call #2: Develop EA repository and update standards.

    • Guided Implementation #7 - Communication Plan

  • Call #1: Create a communication plan.

  • Call #2: Review the communication plan.

Schedule Your First Call

Onsite Workshop

Module 1: Current State of EA governance (Pre-workshop)

The Purpose

  • Conduct stakeholder interviews to understand current state of EA practice and prioritize gaps for EA governance based on organizational complexity.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Prioritized list of actions to arrive at the target state based on the complexity of the organization

Activities: Outputs:
1.1 Determine organizational complexity.
  • Organizational complexity score
1.2 Conduct an assessment of the EA governance components.
  • EA governance current state and prioritized list of EA governance component gaps
1.3 Identify and prioritize gaps.
1.4 Conduct senior management interviews.
  • Stakeholder perception of the EA practice

Module 2: EA Fundamentals and Engagement Model

The Purpose

  • Refine EA fundamentals to align the EA practice with the organization and identify EA touchpoints to provide guidance for projects.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Alignment of EA goals and objectives with the goals and objectives of the organization
  • Early involvement of EA in the IT operating model

Activities: Outputs:
2.1 Review the output of the organizational complexity and EA assessment tools.
2.2 Craft the EA vision and mission.
  • EA vision and mission statement
2.3 Develop the EA principles.
  • EA principles
2.4 Identify the EA goals.
  • EA goals and measures
2.5 Identify EA engagement touchpoints within the IT operating model.
  • Identified EA engagement touchpoints and EA level of involvement

Module 3: EA Governing Bodies

The Purpose

  • Set up EA governing bodies to provide guidance and foster a collaborative environment by identifying the correct number of EA governing bodies, defining the game plan to initialize the governing bodies and creating an architecture review process.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Business benefits are maximized and solution design is within the options set forth by the architectural reference models while no additional layers of bureaucracy are introduced

Activities: Outputs:
3.1 Identify the number of governing bodies.
  • Architecture board structure and coverage
3.2 Define the game plan to initialize the governing bodies.
3.3 Define the architecture review process.
  • Identified architecture review template

Module 4: EA Policy

The Purpose

  • Create an EA policy to provide a set of guidelines designed to direct and constrain the architecture actions of the organization in the pursuit of its goals in order to improve architecture compliance and drive business value.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Improved architecture compliance, which ties investments to business value and provides guidance to architecture practitioners

Activities: Outputs:
4.1 Define the scope.
  • Defined scope
4.2 Identify the target audience.
4.3 Determine the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
  • Inclusion and exclusion criteria for project review
4.4 Craft an assessment checklist.
  • Architecture assessment checklist

Module 5: Architectural Standards and Communication Plan

The Purpose

  • Define architecture standards to facilitate information exchange, improve collaboration, and provide stability.
  • Craft a communication plan to implement the new EA governance framework in order to maximize the chances of success.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Consistent development of architecture, increased information exchange between stakeholders
  • Improved process transparency
  • Improved stakeholder engagement

Activities: Outputs:
5.1 Identify and standardize EA work products.
  • Identified set of EA work products to standardize
5.2 Classifying the architectural standards.
  • Architecture information taxonomy
5.3 Identifying the custodian of standards.
  • Identified set of custodian of standards
5.4 Update the standards.
  • Standard update process
5.5 List the changes identified in the EA governance initiative
  • List of EA governance initiatives
5.6 Create a communication plan.
  • Communication plan for EA governance initiatives

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Onsite Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn’t enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our Project Workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a road map in place to complete your project successfully.

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