Enterprise Architecture - Rollout For Value

Rolling out the Enterprise Architecture is a challenge in practice as there are many books and sources out there prescribing methods and approaches however in practice a successful EA rollout demands tangible outcomes.

Considering the involved architectural domains in EA such as Business and Technology, you could follow approaches like:

1. Top-down approach: Starting with the Business Motivation Model (organization's strategic goals and objectives) and working downwards to the technology domain (identify the required IT capabilities to achieve those goals.)
2. Bottom-up approach: Starting with the existing IT systems and infrastructure and identifying the gaps to meet its strategic goals.
3. Hybrid approach: A mix of 1 and 2.
4. Agile approach: Its iterative and IT and business stakeholders will prioritize and deliver the most valuable features first.
5. Capability-driven approach: Identifying the business capabilities required to achieve the organization's strategic goals and objectives and then developing an enterprise architecture (People, Processes, Technologies, Information, etc.) that supports those capabilities.?

On the other side, to rollout a successful EA, apart from the approach you chose for the targeted domain, you need to have a clear picture of:

1. Architecture principles: as a framework for decision-making that ensures consistency across the organization.
2. Architecture framework: That standardized way of describing enterprise architecture. A set of tools that help with talking to the stakeholders.
3. Architecture vision and roadmap: A high-level view of the enterprise architecture now and future.
4. Architecture standards and guidelines: Tools that ensure that the architecture is implemented consistently and that it aligns with the organization's IT strategy.
5. Architecture artifacts: Tangible outputs of the EA rollout.

Then the key question is I’m just at the point to make artifacts, but what is an artifact that I need to make that brings value to the business? Based on what I can make artifacts? Which artifacts would have my stakeholder's buy-in?

Here are several key approaches you can take to create valuable artifacts for your EA :

Follow The Business Wish List

Start with Stakeholder’s needs. It's important to capture non-structured requirements from businesses and translate them into structured artifacts that can guide the EA development process. It's also important to involve stakeholders in this process to ensure that their needs are being addressed.

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Be Use Case Driven

As a classic approach, realizing an EA Usecase/a Business Scenario/an Architectural Work, through a SMART analysis, is a practical approach to develop an EA because it helps to align the architecture with business objectives and provides a clear understanding of the requirements.

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Go Agile, Go MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Sometimes you have no clear direction from the business, or you probably have, but want to touch on the outcome faster, so you can go with an MVP and then develop it as an actual deliverable following the feedback from the stakeholders along the way.

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Leverage The Existing Artifacts

If you have less idea about the business priorities for EA deliverables, you can find out existing important artifacts in your business and then leverage them so that can help to accelerate the EA development process and ensure that the architecture is aligned with existing business processes and systems.

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Build A Baseline From An SoR

Starting with an available source of records is a practical approach to building up the EA portfolio and expanding the model with additional properties and connections. Please mind the data you bring in for an EA artifact. Focus on key properties and connections.

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Start Small And Follow Maturity Level

Start small. Just a list of applications to initiate a portfolio is enough to start. If you don’t know which Framework you have to choose, don’t waste your time on it, once you start you can plan for maturity.

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Start From The End

If you have an internal/external reference artifact that potentially makes value for the business, you can consider it as what you want to achieve. This leads you to build up the portfolios and develop the meta-model as needed. Study the experience of others and explore your network with help with it. This approach can help to ensure that the EA development process is focused on delivering the desired outcomes, rather than just creating artifacts that may not be useful or relevant.

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Look For The Best Practices

Exploring implemented scenarios and the best practices can help to identify opportunities for improvement and innovation in the EA development process. Understanding different frameworks in the market and how an enterprise in your industry benefits from an artifact and how they did implement it, opens doors.

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Follow The Books

It might be rather ideal, but using established frameworks like TOGAF and ArchiMate can provide a structured approach to EA development and ensure that the architecture is aligned with the industry's best practices, however, it might not necessarily be 100% aligned with your business objectives. Having said that studying them would be helpful.

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Mix Them

You can use a combination of any of the above-mentioned approaches.

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