Design an Enterprise Architecture Strategy

Demystify enterprise architecture value with key metrics.

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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.

Design an Enterprise Architecture Strategy – Executive Brief

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.

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Enterprise Architecture

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
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

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

1.1

Identify and prioritize EA stakeholders.

Stakeholder Power Map

1.2

Review strategic documents to understand organizational plans.

1.3

Conduct PESTLE analysis to identify business and technology trends.

PESTLE Analysis

1.4

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

2.1

Create business and technology drivers.

List of business and technology drivers

2.2

Identify pains that obstruct stakeholders from addressing drivers.

List of pains associated with business and technology drivers

2.3

Brainstorm EA contributions to alleviate pains.

Set of EA contributions to alleviate the pains

2.4

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

3.1

Create the EA vision and mission statement.

EA vision statement
EA mission statement

3.2

Define the EA goals and objectives.

EA goals and objectives

3.3

Determine EA scope.

EA scope

3.4

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

4.1

Define the services the EA function will provide.

Defined list of EA services that the EA function is committed to providing

4.2

Plan next steps for the EA function.

4.3

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

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

National Interstate Insurance

Guided Implementation

9/10

$50,000

115

Best part is the acceleration I get from InfoTech implementation experience and intellectual property. The worst part is, sometimes I don't know what to search on so it may be difficult to find subject matter materials.

Department of Energy- Richland Operations Office

Workshop

9/10

$40,000

All the exercises came together towards the end of the workshop to show the final deliverables that in turn will be used for closing our gaps.

Government of Nunavut

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Dollar General

Guided Implementation

10/10

$132K

Varian Medical Systems, Inc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$33,091

The ability to receive unbiased viewpoints on ideas and direction.

Dark Fibre Africa

Guided Implementation

9/10

$125K

My best part of the experience was when I was feeling frustrated and despondent, Vivek Mehta made me feel that I was not alone and give me a advice and material to support me on my journey.

Office Of The Superintendant of Financial Inst of Cda

Workshop

9/10

$75,000

The best part was the opportunity to have time for focused discussion, facilitated by the InfoTech advisors. Although we regularly work together as an extended team, we don't often have the opportunity to take time to reflect, as a group, on how we can improve our practices and the services we provide. There were no specific "worst parts" that come to mind. Overall, it would have been better to obtain more stakeholder input, perhaps by surveying or interviewing stakeholders in advance of the workshop, rather than attempting to collect all feedback on a single day.

Dark Fibre Africa

Guided Implementation

9/10

$132K

Legal Services Corporation

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

Arif was very flexible during our conversation and allowed it to go where it was most useful to me. He also followed up very quickly with useful links and resources.

State of Michigan

Workshop

8/10

N/A

BTG International

Guided Implementation

10/10

$26,045

Just having someone knowledgeable about the topic to understand the situation and give advice is very valuable. While my strategy didn't change significantly - Arif was able to point out that potential expensive systems may not be necessary and may have prevented additional wasted dollars and time. Overall, it was a useful and helpful interaction. No overall bad portions of the experience. I would suggest that all Analyst calls use Video Conferencing as a default instead of simply telephony as it lends to additional sharing capabilities and seeing the person always helps build a rapport. This is a general info-tech recommendation, not related to this specific interaction.

Las Vegas Sands

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

Belize Telemedia Limited

Guided Implementation

9/10

$62,873

The best part of the experience is the way that Gopi take the time to ensure that I understand the process and how to use the tools and shared tangable materials that can be used later on.

Menzies Distribution

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Arif had given some great advice to me in the start of my new role in EA. He has shown some of the tools available on the Info-tech site that I can use to help me. He has got me thinking about the stategy in different way than before.

South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority

Guided Implementation

10/10

$1,900

Best: The template, instructions and telephone consultation quickly allowed me to focus in on important aspects. Worst: absolutely none.

City of Saskatoon, SK

Guided Implementation

10/10

$1,900

NASA

Guided Implementation

8/10

$13,236

Valuable data that I will definitely use. Still feeling out this service. All positive so far.

Rotary International

Guided Implementation

10/10

$66,183

The best part of the experience: you get a knowledgeable person that you can have some great insights into the issues at hand. We haven't run into anything negative experiences yet.

UAP Inc

Workshop

8/10

N/A

Belize Telemedia Limited

Guided Implementation

8/10

$31,106

Best part is the sharing of knowledge. I get to learn about possibilities and can therefore move towards introducing proven concepts that deliver value.

Australian Catholic University

Guided Implementation

10/10

$33,511

Industry knowledge and personal experience that you bring, on top of the materials you provide.

Modern Woodmen of America

Guided Implementation

8/10

$13,236

The advice and tools have been great. We have been open to work around my sometimes difficult schedule. The hardest part is on our side. There is a tremendous amount of work and education we need to do and provide to leadership. While the EA team would love to adopt everything, we are limited by how much leadership is ready for.

Belize Telemedia Limited

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

Best - Presentations, Walk through of the slides, explanations of the steps and general strategy Worst - too many things to assimilate in such a short time frame. Slow progress as a result of competing priorities on my side and being able to perform the exercises and extract needed feedback from stakeholders

Wabtec Corp

Guided Implementation

6/10

N/A

Toronto Community Housing Corporation

Guided Implementation

8/10

$10,000

The additional set of expertise to assist in formulating the vision and mission.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Assoc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$66,183

He is very knowledgeable in multiple areas, which makes it great for putting things together in the big picture.

City of Saskatoon, SK

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

David's Bridal

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

LA County CIO's Office

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Eircom Ltd.

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Extremely beneficial engagement on EA Strategy. Some very useful insights provided on how eir should position the EA area with a view to it becoming an invaluable function within the organisation.