Later this month, The Open Group’s first conference in Australia will focus on “How Does Enterprise Architecture Transform an Enterprise?”
As a prelude to the event, Briefings Direct recently interviewed CEO Hugh Evans and Craig Martin, Chief Operations Officer and Chief Architect at Enterprise Architects. The interview was conducted by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.Listen to the podcast here:
I’m often asked, by both business and technology stakeholders, why they should spend money on enterprise architecture when their budgets are already too tight. A common reaction to budget cuts is to drop strategic work in favour of diverting funds to operational activities. Many fail to recognise that this is the time when a clear enterprise view of the organisation is vitally important. Although a large architecture program may not be appropriate, you may have to invest some money to avoid wasting significant money on poor decisions.
Building an architecture capability is easy, right? We’ve all had the same thought – just send your cleverest current or aspiring architects on a week’s architecture training (pick your favourite flavour – TOGAF, Archimate, etc), spend a few bucks on a shiny new whiz-bang architecture tool then whip up a few eye catching models and send them out into the world. There you have it, an instant business-aligned IT architecture from a team who can now architect the heck out of anything you care to throw at them.
If only it was that simple…
Having delivered many talks on Business Architecture over the years, I’m often struck by the common vision driving many members in the audience – a vision of building cohesion in a business, achieving the right balance between competing forces and bringing the business strategy and operations into harmony. However, as with many ambitious visions, the challenge in this case is immense. As I will explain, many of the people who envision this future state of nirvana are, in practice, inadvertently preventing it from happening.
How is ArchiMate® 2 being used by practising architects today?
The ArchiMate® 2 specification was released by The Open Group in December 2011. Based on conversations with customers during our TOGAF® 9.1 training and consulting engagements, we are seeing increasing interest in – and adoption – of ArchiMate® 2 among practising architects.
How is ArchiMate® 2 being used? What kind of models and diagrams are being created – given that ArchiMate® supports the integration of architecture views across all domains of enterprise architecture (Business, Data, Application, Technology)?
As architecture practitioners our ability to deliver exceptional results is often dependent on our ability to connect with business stakeholders. Unfortunately some practitioners struggle with this. Effective communication between practitioners and stakeholders is crucial obtaining the information needed to drive architecture and therefore, the ability to connect with and understand key stakeholders is fundamental to the architect’s arsenal.
On Thursday the 7th of March 2013 I delivered an Open Group webinar titled ‘Bridging Business Analysis and Business Architecture’. Since then I have received a number of queries so I’d like to follow up with a quick summary of the presentation. In the presentation I investigate the relationship between the disciplines. I outline the career path that one might take from the business analyst role towards more strategic business architecture roles and also look at techniques to make business architecture more effective in your organisation.
Webinar Video Recording
The presentation also highlights gaps and overlaps between BABOK, BIZBOK and TOGAF® and how using frameworks can support your current activities in this area. Continuing this theme I have recently recorded a podcast with our CEO, Hugh Evans about business architecture and business analysis and what is the future of both of these disciplines. The interview was moderated by Dana Gardner, president and principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions and was published on ZDNet.
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At Enterprise Architects we are always thinking about what is important to business and how business and technology architecture can bring more value. Right now we are focussing on some important trends that business and architecture practitioners should follow in 2013.
The world of business is enormously complex and diverse and the boundaries of enterprise are constantly changing, as are the rules of the game. So – what matters to an architect? The EA Headspace infographic is a fun way to communicate what’s on the mind of our team here at Enterprise Architects.
Look in various business and technology architecture forums on LinkedIn and you will see hundreds of attempts to define enterprise architecture. The debate rages about whether business architecture is part of EA, what it takes to be an architect, and whether architects can even rightly use a title that is hard-earned by the ‘real’ architects in the construction industry.
