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Design an Enterprise Architecture Strategy
Maximize the likelihood of EA success by communicating EA’s expected contributions to the business.
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Contributors
- Zachary Curry, Director, Enterprise Architecture and Innovation, FMC Technologies
- Pam Doucette, Director of Enterprise Architecture, Tufts Health Plan
- Joe Evers, Consulting Principal, JcEvers Consulting Corp
- Cameron Fairbairn, Contract Architect / Consultant, 8Bit Networks
- Michael Fulton, Chief Digital Officer & President, Americas Division at CC&C Solutions
- Tom Graves, Principal Consultant, Tetradian Consulting
- (JB) Brahmaiah Jarugumilli, Consultant, Federal Aviation Administration – Enterprise Services Center
- Huw Morgan, IT Research Executive, Enterprise Architect
- Serge Parisien, Manager, Enterprise Architecture, Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation
Your Challenge
- The enterprise architecture (EA) team is constantly challenged to articulate the value of its function.
- The CIO has asked the Enterprise Architecture team to help him understand the value the team brings to his department.
- While there may be an IT strategy documented, no EA strategy exists, or at best, some loose collection of ideas form the basis of the EA strategy.
- The business focuses on a projects, ignoring holistic value of an overarching architecture.
- This “project-only” view results in poor technology investments, resulting in massive technical debt, and most enterprises are not ready to adjust to the Agile practices, further increasing technical debt.
- In addition, enterprises struggle with rapidly changing technologies.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- EA can deliver many benefits to an organization. However, in order to increase the likelihood of success, the EA group needs to deliver value to their organization based on the operating environment and the direction of the enterprise.
- An EA strategy anchored in a value proposition will ensure that EA focuses on driving the most critical outcomes in support of the organization’s enterprise strategy.
Impact and Result
- Create an EA value proposition based on enterprise needs that clearly articulates the expected contributions of the EA function.
- Establish the EA fundamentals (vision and mission statement, goals and objectives, and principles) needed to position the EA function to deliver the promised value proposition.
- Identify the services that EA has to provide to the organization in order to deliver on the promised value proposition.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create an EA strategy to establish a successful EA practice, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Value proposition
Identify EA stakeholders and their needs, identify the pains preventing those needs from being addressed, and articulate a set of promises of value based on stakeholder needs to show EA’s value proposition.
2. EA fundamentals
Create the EA fundamentals based on the previously identified promises of value to guide the future decision of the EA function.
3. EA service design
Identify the EA services your EA function needs to provide the organization to fulfill its promises of value.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a seven call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Value proposition
Call #1 - Define the business and technology drivers of the organization.
Call #2 - Create an EA value proposition linked to business and technology drivers.
Guided Implementation #2 - EA fundamentals
Call #1 - Realize the importance of EA fundamentals.
Call #2 - Create the EA function scope.
Call #3 - Define the EA principles for the organization.
Guided Implementation #3 - EA service design
Call #1 - Define the relevant EA services to your organization and how they will be consumed.
Call #2 - Finalize the set of services and secure approval for the EA strategy.
Info-Tech Academy
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Enterprise Architecture Course
EA teams need to understand the dynamic relationship between organizational complexity, operational maturity, and stakeholder value. This relationship forms the foundation for building value-driven roadmaps anchored in stakeholder needs..
This course makes up part of the Service Planning & Architecture Certificate.
Course information:
- Title: Enterprise Architecture Course
- Number of Course Modules: 4
- Estimated Time to Complete: 1 hour
- Featured Analysts:
- Gord Harrison, SVP Research & Advisory
- Arif Mustafa, Research Director, Enterprise Architecture
- Now Playing: Executive Brief: Design an Enterprise Architecture Strategy
Book Your Workshop
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 roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Identify Stakeholders and Their Needs
The Purpose
- Identify the EA stakeholders and their needs.
Key Benefits Achieved
- An understanding of the stakeholders and their needs, which will be used to frame the EA value proposition.
Activities
Outputs
Identify and prioritize EA stakeholders.
- Stakeholder Power Map
Review strategic documents to understand organizational plans.
Conduct PESTLE analysis to identify business and technology trends.
- PESTLE Analysis
Interview stakeholders to identify business and technology needs.
- List of business and technology needs
Module 2: Create the EA Value Proposition
The Purpose
- Create a value proposition to communicate the value of EA by linking together EA’s contributions, stakeholder needs, and generated value.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Create a direct link between
stakeholder needs and ways EA can help stakeholders address those needs.
Activities
Outputs
Create business and technology drivers.
- List of business and technology drivers
Identify pains that obstruct stakeholders from addressing drivers.
- List of pains associated with business and technology drivers
Brainstorm EA contributions to alleviate pains.
- Set of EA contributions to alleviate the pains
Define promises of value to articulate the EA value proposition.
- Promises of value to articulate the EA value proposition
Module 3: Define the EA Fundamentals
The Purpose
- Create the EA fundamentals to guide the strategic direction of the EA function.
Key Benefits Achieved
- EA fundamentals are created to assist the EA function in making future decisions.
Activities
Outputs
Create the EA vision and mission statement.
- EA vision statement
- EA mission statement
Define the EA goals and objectives.
- EA goals and objectives
Determine EA scope.
- EA scope
Create a set of EA principles.
- List of EA principles
Module 4: Identify EA Services and Communicate the EA Strategy
The Purpose
- Define the EA services relevant to your organization.
- Present the EA strategy outputs to stakeholders to secure EA strategy approval.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Define the services EA will provide to the organization and how they will be delivered.
- Secure EA strategy approval.
Activities
Outputs
Define the services the EA function will provide.
- Defined list of EA services that the EA function is committed to providing
Plan next steps for the EA function.
Present workshop recommendations to EA stakeholders.
- Executive presentation to EA stakeholders
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.
Client
$ Saved
Days Saved
Testimonial
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
$100K
30
The perspective that Info-Tech brought to the table was very practical. The team was very easy to work with in terms of understanding the deliverables we had to deliver. The depth of documentation that supports the program and was shared with us during the session and after the fact in terms of heat maps, business capabilities modelling, and architecture diagrams; these were very good. We could relate to these as they were both practical and effective in our discussions with stakeholders.
Regional Municipality Of York
N/A
N/A
It was a fantastic way to quickly kick-start the development of our EA capability / program.
Client
Facilitator(s) effectiveness
INFO & materials effectiveness
Overall experience
Understanding of next steps
Testimonial
Tufts Health Plan
7.0
8.5
8.0
7.0
Oxy Inc.
8.0
8.5
8.5
Project Management Institute
7.0
7.5
7.5
7.0
