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.