Revolutionizing Enterprise Architecture: Adapting to Agile in the Digital Age

Executing digital transformations successfully requires organizations to employ more agile methodologies to build complex systems. A critical question often arises: How does enterprise architecture (EA) fit with agile approaches? Many people view enterprise architecture and agile methods as conflicting concepts. However, EA can be adapted to support agile enterprises effectively. This article will explore five key areas where enterprise architecture functions must evolve to enable agile organizations.

1. The New Role of Enterprise Architecture (EA)

Embracing Architectural Thinking and Focusing on Business Outcomes

Traditional EA has focused heavily on frameworks, processes, and internal orientations. However, there is a noticeable shift towards business outcome-oriented EA capabilities. Modern EA should be driven by achieving measurable business outcomes and making real-world impacts. This transition requires embracing 'architectural thinking' across the organization and focusing on aligning IT with business needs.

Evolution of EA

The Gartner Hype Cycle illustrates that EA is currently in the 'slope of enlightenment.' This means the discipline has matured significantly, moving away from a process-driven approach to one that is driven by business outcomes and value. Modern EA capabilities should be integrated into agile delivery organizations, enabling iterative and incremental development of architectures.

2. EA Organization

Ensuring Close Links to Business Domains and Scaling with Project Demands

An effective enterprise architecture function must ensure a close link to business domains and value streams. This alignment allows EA to scale with project demands, ensuring it remains relevant and valuable to the business. One potential organizational setup is a hybrid model that combines a central core team with embedded domain architects. This structure ensures a close link to business demands while maintaining a lean, central core EA team for high-level strategy development.

Hybrid EA Organization

The proposed hybrid organizational structure consists of:

1. A lean, central core EA team for high-level strategy development and enterprise planning processes.
2. Decentralized, integrated domain architects for business-oriented development of domain and solution architectures.
3. Virtual architecture working groups to leverage information exchange and best practices between enterprise, domain, and solution architects.

3. EA Governance

Complementing Formal Corporate Governance with Community-Based Alignment

Agile working approaches change how IT solutions are developed and delivered, creating new challenges for the EA function. Traditional governance models may conflict with the high autonomy of agile development teams. Therefore, EA governance must evolve to complement formal corporate governance with community-based alignment.

Layered Governance Model

The rationale for a layered governance model is that strategic architecture decisions should be aligned with overall business and digitalization strategies. These decisions should be formally presented, discussed, and approved by corporate architecture governance boards. Tactical architecture matters can be self-organized within the architecture community, fostering decentralized alignment and exchange of best practices. This approach allows delivery teams the freedom to develop practice-based solutions within given architectural limits.

4. Agile Operating Model

Leveraging Lightweight Architecture Tools to Support Decentralized Work

A modern EA operating model should revolve around key principles such as being pragmatic, value-oriented, lean, agile, and collaborative. The goal is to focus EA efforts on key stakeholders, avoid architectural 'waste', and work iteratively and incrementally. Collaboration with business and delivery teams is essential to ensure alignment with business strategies.

Agile EA Manifesto

An agile EA manifesto can create a framework for a renewed way of architectural working. This includes enabling everyone to think like an architect, implementing architecture increments, and developing architecture artifacts iteratively for specific requirements. Architects should engage proactively with business and delivery teams, promoting cross-program alignment and reuse of architecture assets.

Shortened Delivery Cycles

In agile environments, the delivery cycles of EA services have shortened significantly. EA functions must develop architecture vision aligned with business objectives, facilitate the selection of technology standards, and manage the architectural runway to ensure scalability and modularity. Architecture documentation should be fit-for-purpose and developed incrementally with continuous feedback.

5. EA Tool Support

Supporting Value-Oriented and Decentralized Architecture Work

A comprehensive EA repository should provide an accurate and up-to-date view of business capabilities, applications, data, and technology. It should support architecture reports for decision-making and be accessible to all users in the company. However, many established architecture repositories are outdated and only used by architects. Successful modern EA tools stand out due to easy deployment, an intuitive user interface, and fostering engagement between IT and business users.

Case Study: EA Tool Implementation in an Agile Environment

In an agile setup, architects formed a new image of themselves, impacting their EA tool requirements. The tool had to be accessible to everyone in the IT organization, with reports created by both business and IT users. Information had to be maintained by relevant owners, such as application managers and process owners. This approach made the architects' work more visible and revealed blind spots in shadow IT. Training sessions ensured proper data collection and involved a wide range of users. Continuous quality checks and feedback were essential to maintain data quality.

Conclusion

Enterprise architecture must adapt to support agile enterprises effectively. By embracing architectural thinking, ensuring close links to business domains, complementing formal governance with community-based alignment, leveraging lightweight architecture tools, and supporting value-oriented and decentralized work, EA can enable organizations to lead successful digital transformations. The evolution of EA towards a business outcome-oriented approach is crucial for achieving measurable business impacts and remaining relevant in today's rapidly changing digital landscape.