WHAT IS NOT ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE?

Hi

Like most terms, Enterprise Architecture may mean different things to different people. For some it is a set of rules. For others, it is a logical and technical design, and for some others, it is a methodology for achieving an effective design. Nevertheless, all EA development projects have a common goal—to create order out of chaos. However, achieving this goal is easier said than done, especially since Enterprise Architecture must provide structure and efficiency, and at the same time remain flexible to accommodate changing business strategies, functions, rules, and components. Sometimes, the intent of Enterprise Architecture is misunderstood:

• a. EA is not business strategy: Business leaders and senior executives define a business strategy, and it articulates the strategic business goals and directions of the organization as a whole. The business plan turns strategies into specific tactical plans designed to achieve the strategic goals. The EA team must leverage the strategic guidance from the business strategy and specific tactical guidance from the business plans to guide their EA efforts overall.

• b. EA is not ICT strategic planning: EA and ICT strategic planning are complementary efforts that must be coordinated and integrated, but they are not the same. While a CIO most often leads ICT strategic planning, EA teams should serve as an advisor into ICT strategic planning, along with the CTO, senior ICT staff, and business leaders and users.

• c. EA is not ICT governance: ICT governance is composed of processes with the inputs, outputs, roles and responsibilities that are inherent in a process definition. ICT governance is the process that ensures the effective and efficient use of ICT in enabling an organization to achieve its goals.

• d. EA is not program management: Program management is the coordinated planning, management and execution of multiple related projects that are directed toward the same strategic, business or organizational objectives. EA is a planning discipline, while program management is an execution discipline. EA is responsible for defining the future state of the enterprise, analyzing the gaps between the current state and the future state, and developing the standards and guidelines that support the realization of the future state.

• e. EA is not portfolio management: Portfolio management is the processes, governance, and tools used to plan, create, access, balance, and communicate the execution of the ICT portfolio. Portfolio management techniques can be applied to the application portfolio, the infrastructure portfolio, the project portfolio, the ICT investment portfolio, or any of these in combination.

• f. EA is not business process management: Business process management is a systematic approach to improving the way an enterprise does business by analyzing the strategic goals of the enterprise, then aligning the stakeholder interest with shared process performance objectives. As part of the common requirements vision process, EA provides the analysis of the strategy and identifies the most critical strategic imperatives.

• g. EA is not performance management: Performance management is the combination of management methodologies, metrics, and ICT that enable users to define, monitor, and optimize results and outcomes to achieve personal or departmental objectives while enabling alignment with strategic objectives across multiple organizational levels. EA teams must participate in performance management efforts relating to critical business processes. This will allow them to track key business metrics that demonstrate the business value that EA is delivering.

• h. EA is not implementation: Enterprise architects do not dictate implementation details for the entire organization or for specific practice areas. EA provides the foundational principles, guidelines, standards, and constraints that enable implementation teams to make better decisions.

• i. EA is not a technology or application inventory: Many organizations fall into a trap of believing that EA is a map of all their technologies and applications and/or that EA is solely about technology. EA development is a much broader process that is directly reflecting the business vision and strategy, and represents people, processes, organization, information, and technology that are critical to the business strategy.

• j. EA is not change management: Change management is a structured approach to change that encompasses individuals, teams, and organizations, with the objective of facilitating the human side of change. EA provides the strategic context for the change through the common requirements vision or some similar vehicle, and it provides the view of the future state from a process, organization, information, and technology perspective.

EA must support, facilitate, enable, and collaborate with all of these efforts to reach the mutually defined future state

;;_))