Trends in Enterprise Architecture
Three key trends impacting the practice of Enterprise Architecture and the business value company's receive from it.
2008-2009 was a watershed for the EA Practice. Those that remain and thrive in the later days of the Great Recession are leaner, more business focused, delivering measurable value through strategy, governance and focus on critical interfaces between key enterprise components.
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There are three trends that support this conclusion:
- EA Practices are getting smaller and more focused on the business
- There is more emphasis on strategy, process and governance and less on frameworks and tools
- Managed services and outsourcing are driving architecture toward the lines, away from the boxes
For those who have read much of this blog, you know that a big theme is evolution of EA as a practice. In Evolution Was Bad For Neanderthals I stated that it's transform or die out. Thankfully, I think we are evolving.
EA Practices will continue to get smaller and be more focused on the business
The down turn in the economy has forced corporate America to carefully evaluate IT departments and ask, "Do I absolutely have to have this?" Let's face facts - it is hard to understand what we do; see Who's On First? and Nik's Malik's Understanding Enterprise Architecture. Businesses have retained EA teams that are perceived as being immediately valuable and jettisoned the rest.
While the signals of this are weak at present, it follows naturally that important skills for EAs are shifting toward the Business and Information layers in the Architecture domain stack because this is where a smaller EA teams can have the most impact on the company bottom line. If you are a young EA or desire to get into the profession, suggest developing the skills necessary to have a conversation with the business about process, data and technology in terms of cost, benefit, capability and risk then learn how to turn this information into simple boxes and lines that describe the future state.
There will be more emphasis on strategy, process and governance and less on frameworks and tools
In Welcome to Frameworkville and Digging to China, I state that frameworks and tools are on the path to architectural maturity but are not the path to it. My perspective comes from personal experience and talks with other EA teams - we all mistakenly thought that buying a tool or implementing a framework was the way to grow an EA capability.
Tools are complex, frameworks are abstract AND complex. Both require a recognition of the value of EA and a long term commitment to practice it a the highest levels. Considering the economically driven focus on survival, EA activities that provide immediate value to the business are better first steps towards maturity. Developing credibility as a strategic asset to the business is never a bad early step.
Effective EA teams, as they mature, will:
- Focus on providing easily consumed, strategic deliverables that executives can use to make decisions about the future of the business. Less "boil the ocean" analytic exercises with dubious short term value will be tolerated. Both tools and frameworks, while good, can distract teams from producing value.
- Define repeatable processes for producing EA deliverables then measure progress against these with a set of metrics. Continuously reporting progress against metrics is crucial to the survival of the EA team. It will also help drive priority decisions.
- Enforce architecture standards through governance, but consider principles and strategies as higher order standards. Maturing EA teams will develop "standards" in the form of principles and strategies first to supplement detailed technical specifications. Shortly, practices will realize that these strategic governance tools are making a bigger impact that the detailed technical ones.
Managed services and outsourcing will drive architecting the lines and not the boxes
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