Enterprise Architecture – what has changed in last 7 years?

I delivered my first EA and TOGAF class in winter of 2004 at Ministry of Veteran Affairs in Prince Edward Island, Canada. It was the coldest week on the island, other than it being most beautifully lit city with xmas lights, pubs full of locals enjoying island beer, there was no sign of life anywhere. Since then I have delivered more than 150 TOGAF and EA courses in all continents. In this blog, I wanted to capture what has changed in those seven years and where we might be heading.

In 2004:
• The student body consisted members of Enterprise Architecture team, including program director, managers, enterprise architects, domain architects, team leads and few business and systems analysts. The group was very enthusiastic, really cared about their organization and had genuine desire to do the things right.
• The class interest seemed to peak when we discussed Technology, Data and Application Architectures phases within TOGAF ADM.
• Interest was low during business architecture phase as most candidates couldn’t comprehend business architecture was within their role. The components of business architecture such as improved business process, ability to mitigate impact of change on people and ability to, naturally, measure the performance of business process and link it back to goals of the business. These components got nodding ovation but no serious debate.
• The candidates were trying to fit TOGAF within “architecting the city model” paradigm that was entrenched in architects, thanks to Meta Group and Zachman. They were also testing to see if this TOGAF thing is useful or just one more “me too” the kind of thing IT industry with deep marketing dollars is full off.
• The discussion on how to measure contribution of EA to organization goals, time horizon in which EA practice needed to show unambiguous and measurable value was excess of 18 months if expected at all by anybody. Architecture seemed like a place for IT people who couldn’t code anymore and had no skills to manage people.

In 2011:
• Fast forward to last class in Feb 2011, the candidates were from an IT Organization, the class composition was same as in 2004, however the discussion was very different.
• Discussion immediately jumped into how do we bring all these value delivery disciplines such as strategic planning, portfolio management, project management, LOB management and SME, IT service management and senior management into discussion so we are on the same song sheet as oppose to trying to undermine each other.
• Measurement of value and time horizon over which value must be demonstrated was very important and consensus was that it can’t take longer than 6 months, you must have very clear leading indicators visible in less than 3 months.
• Candidates wanted TOFAF to show them how to translate Strategic Intent into set of easily understandable capabilities and rationalize their current portfolio of projects and investments. This needed to get done within weeks, and results to be communicated to senior management not only in IT but to LOB managers.
• Next how to take each capability and define architecture roadmap, financially viable migration path and how to work with delivery teams not only build the capabilities as architected but work with LOB management to exploit them
• The tall order, I think we got there. Thanks to business and tech savvy people in the classroom.

Summary – what changed in that timeframe:
• From macro point of view what changed in seven years, in two words a lot. The mechanics of TOGAF is not up for debate anymore, TOGAF works. Why wouldn’t it, it incorporates techniques that have evolved for more 2000 years. People understand ADM, they understand how content framework, enterprise continuum and repository are essential. Skills framework is simple way to define and mature transformation capabilities of the Organization.
• People’s focus has changed from deliverables to measurable value over much shorter horizon.
• Some people in IT are ready to shed the “Techies in IT” image and join the main stream organization.

Opportunities and Challenges :
• If this recession has done one thing for you, it opened the door. Now it is up to you.
• It is time for business savvy IT professionals to take the covers off TOGAF and communicate it to the business. Be careful how you communicate, not like Sheldon communicating to Penny in “Big Bang Theory”. Build relationship with your key stakeholder, get to know him/her, make sure he/she get to know you, understand his/her painpoints, work with his/her staff to solve the underlying problem without boiling the ocean. Your stakeholder’s staff will entrench your position not only within the stakeholder but also in their LOB. When your stakeholder asks your CIO to change your reporting structure dotted line to him/her you have migrated EA into business.
• If you don’t have the skills to do all in first bullet , get help. You may need coaching and mentoring. Approach one of your key stakeholder and ask them to be your mentor. Remember, it is senior management’s job to coach young players. If you get accepted , by god you better be the first on the ice with a heart size of truck – a hockey (ice hockey) metaphor.
• If you don’t have the desire to learn, stop calling yourself an architect. In that case you may be better suited as Technology Guy. There are a lot of jobs for them with technology vendors not in IT Organization. May be your strength is to write recursion program using C.

Comments:
I would love to hear from people who took these challenges and did something about them. What is worst could happen, as my coach said – world just got one more person who have just come alive.