Top 10 Things an EA Should Be Thinking About (Part 1)

So it seems like that time of the year again where different analysts, experts and bloggers are coming out with Top 10 trends lists.  While some might view the yearly generic crop of “Top 10” lists as trite, superficial, or simply  repeating things everyone already knows; we thought we would take a stab at a list that would be different than other Top Ten EA trends lists.  We typically see the same technology-oriented trends peppered across these lists, with little or no business context around them.  Quite frankly, it is the business that matters the most, and that is what we would like to see EA’s thinking about… not just now, but all the time.

Our list represents the Top Ten (or so) things that we think true Enterprise Architects should be thinking about.  As always, this represents our thinking that Enterprise Architects should be focused on the whole of the enterprise, business and IT perspectives, long term business strategy and transformation, and the impact that has on the work that needs to be done beyond the here and now.  Not the kinds of things that solution architects, data architects, application architects, infrastructure architects, or security architects should be thinking about – What should ENTERPRISE architects be thinking about?

 Not listed in order of importance – they are all important.  Also, we would like to tell you that a typical IT-centric Enterprise Architect may not be able to answer these questions or think about them as completely as they should – in which case, they need to seek out the appropriate business and/or IT professionals to discuss these topics with from the perspective of their enterprise.

1. Are our business’s customers the type of customers we can reach through social media?  If so, how does that change our marketing and product/service development operations?  Social media gets a lot of attention, and in certain circumstances, can be a valuable and powerful employee relations, marketing, customer service and product delivery tool.  But social media is not for everyone.  EAs need to think about and discuss the impact that these tools can have on employee, partner and customer interactions with people that are knowledgeable in these areas. 
2. As more and more business applications are made available via “the cloud” (which is really another way of saying externally provided over the internet for our purposes), how can that change the way we work?  The “cloud” seems to be everywhere.  I don’t want to see an EA thinking about all of the technical capabilities enabling and roadblocks constraining cloud computing – there are domain architects and engineers and vendors for that.  I want to see them thinking about how the business would change with software, infrastructure and information “virtually” available from any browser, anywhere.  And I want them discussing the financial ramifications of using externally provided services with the finance department and IT finance personnel.
3. How can we more effectively leverage our information assets?  Is there information we have that others would pay for?  Is there information that we don’t have , that we can get from other sources?  As increasing amounts of information about customers, markets, transactions, sensor status, etc. flow into our company, I would like to see EAs having conversations with information consumers and executives about effectively analyzing that information to increase profits and/or value to our constituents?  Can we handle it, manage it, store it, protect it, etc.?  Which work processes must change or be invented to operate in the new environment? We continue to believe that information is one of the most underutilized assets of most enterprises.  This is a prime opportunity for EA to deliver value.
4. How should we guide sourcing strategies? based on cost, commoditization, competitive advantage, etc.?   Is it in our best interest to maintain captive skills or acquire them elsewhere?  As an outcome of thinking about most business and technology related outcomes, EAs should consider the impact that new business operations, channels, technologies, etc. have on the skills and training of the enterprise’s personnel.  This provides insight into alternative sourcing strategies and the time and cost impications of each. 
5. What level of business process standardization and what level of business process integration does our business’s operating model require? More importantly, which business processes should be standardized (allowing for more leverage of the supporting business applications) and which business processes need to be integrated (allowing for more leverage of the shared information assets)?  All too often, I speak with enterprise architects who are having a hard time having a meaningful, high level discussion with business executives about how the business operates and how that relates to what the IT department can offer.  At the same time, I see information technology departments struggling with justifying the integration and data management technologies that the business seems to need.  The discussion about the enterprise’s operating model is one that I find executives understand and find meaningful in the way it relates business operations and IT investment decision making. 

So there is the first half of our Top 10 Things EAs should be thinking about …  We will finish our list in next month’s newsletter (click here for details on one of them).

Let us know your top 10 things to think about.

Things EA’s Should Think About – External Collaboration

One of the many interesting outcomes of today’s business climate is the increasing variety of new business partnerships. Traditional boundaries between organizations are giving way to innovative and creative relationships, driven by a combination of necessity and opportunity. Cross-company information exchange and collaboration is the central success component.

Organizations are discovering that there is often more to implementing these partnerships than is apparent at the outset, and the issues multiply with each new relationship. For example, “How can we effectively share information and collaborate with partners while protecting business confidentiality and adhering to regulatory concerns”? Those are just two among many important considerations. Issues intrinsic to external collaboration have far-reaching implications. Identifying and addressing them is tailor-made to the broad, cross-enterprise, cross-domain perspective and analyses that an EA group can bring to the table.

Many organizations are discovering that the volume of requests to share information is increasing with each new business partnership, as is the type of information exchanged. Increasingly, they are seeing demand for bi-directional collaborative interactions, in near real-time, and with a frequency that makes it difficult to respond in time to address the market opportunity. Furthermore, these collaboration requirements are contextual and don’t always fit into a standardized approach. Not only will different companies have different needs, but it is likely that there will be many different models even within a single company based on the type of partnership and the participating departments. Some cross-organization collaborative examples we have seen include legal negotiations, multi-company engineering activities, resource scheduling /provisioning, joint marketing initiatives, barter arrangements that include trading excess production capacity for a right to access an organization’s client base in a foreign market, and many other variations.

It is likely that a single standard solution cannot address the full range of scenarios an organization might encounter. The EA group should work to raise the visibility of the most pertinent issues. They should guide the creation of a general framework, including a set of rules, principles and approaches that can address them. Here are just a few of the questions organizations we work with are beginning to ask:

• What is the business vision for partnerships? How will they grow and evolve? Where do they fit in our overall enterprise model? Which business processes, business functions and information areas are involved? What is the business value to enabling these partnerships?
• What confidentiality, proprietary, legal and regulatory issues are relevant? What other business risks are in play?
• What patterns of external collaboration exist with potential partners? Are there standardized business patterns and collaboration models that will broadly satisfy business need?
• How should external collaboration integrate with our own internal collaboration models and enabling infrastructure? Should it? Do we grant access to external parties?
• How do we protect our proprietary and confidential information from being intentionally or accidentally passed on to other parties? How do we protect theirs? Do we restrict unauthorized copying? Do we lock access, encrypt, etc.?
• How do we address different data definitions, data security zones, data classifications, etc.?
• How do we ensure timely and scheduled updates to our partners? How do we alert each other to changes? How do we ensure partners are not working with expired information?
• Etc.

So, what should enterprise architects do? Get ahead of the conversation, not so much that you get tuned out, but enough that you begin asking the right questions to gauge the enterprise need. Use a multi-pronged communications approach to get the conversation started with business leaders, IT leaders, your own team and other stakeholders. Techniques can include individual discussions, facilitated sessions, and internal social media postings. Once you get a sense for the appetite of the enterprise you may see traction develop. Begin to create hard artifacts for discussion; capabilities analysis first, then principles, then iteratively build increasingly detailed models, specifically business architecture models. Remember that, at any time, you may get too far ahead for anyone to care. You can always park your work and come back to revisit later.

External collaboration is just one of the many questions that enterprise architects might want to think about in the next year. A proactive EA group’s role is to be thinking about high impact, enterprise-wide constructs at least in enough detail to have an appreciation for the issues, the scope and scale of possible approaches. Doing so will inform the organization enough to make the proper decisions when time becomes the critical constraint.

EA Activity Catalog

If an enterprise architecture team tries to be everything to everybody, at all possible levels of detail, at every point in time, it will fail.  The result will be that it doesn’t do anything for anybody, which would be unfortunate.  When it works, EA can have a significant impact on the quality, consistency, and speed of decision-making.

How can you avoid the inevitable overload and the misunderstood expectations?  Every great enterprise architecture team I know constantly examines the work it is doing in the context of the resources it has available, the number of hours available each day, the objectives it must meet and the expectations of its stakeholders.  In addition, the leaders appreciate that EA teams evolve over time and adjust to the changing needs of their business.  The key is to know which activities they must perform, how many at a time, how frequently and in what order.  The attached presentation is a starting point to understand the range of activities you COULD do.  The challenge is to determine which of these you CAN and SHOULD do.