Issue 2-4

An IT executive friend recently described her frustration with a search for an enterprise architect. She needs an enterprise architect equipped to lead an EA program in her aggressive and dynamic organization. She knows exactly what she wants - business acumen, knowledge of the breadth of enterprise architecture practices, strategic thinking ability, and top-notch management, communication and leadership skills. Her search, at least so far, has proven unsuccessful and frustrating.

Short staffed. Limited budgets. Increasingly complex infrastructures. Growing regulatory compliance burdens.  It is no secret that these have all become standard operating conditions in IT departments at virtually every company. While enterprise infrastructure, resource management and IT resource infrastructure and portfolio management solutions can help to mitigate these burdens, they do not facilitate visibility into the interdependencies of resources across business processes, policies, and regulatory compliance mandates.

Data Governance provides the framework for the intersection of IT and business working together to establish confidence and credibility in the enterprise's information.

Executive Summary
Data governance is not just a collection of ad-hoc data quality projects, but the development and integration of a set of rules - policies, guidelines, and standards - for managing the corporation's data. It is implemented by a data governance management team of information technology and business associates who are unified by a common goal to ensure that:

In the small community that is Enterprise Architecture, it is up to each thought leader, professional, and practitioner to innovate, pushing the bounds of the discipline in new dynamic directions.

Architecture & Governance plans to feature three such individuals in each issue in the hope that it not only will educate others in the field, but also inspire.

There is no question that, in theory, a successful EA program can have significant positive impact on the enterprise. Why, then, do so many enterprises struggle with achieving success? In many cases it is because too much attention is focused on execution and not enough on the people involved in the program.

We are at a crossroads in the Enterprise Architecture discipline where the combination of architectural process, tool capability, business demand and political willpower is allowing for the emergence of a new breed of strategic EA. This new EA is future-oriented, strategic in thinking and actionable. And one of the most challenging aspects of this paradigm is how to drive real business value without squandering the new resources and political will that has been gathered.