Enterprise Architecture Thrives in the Right Corporate Culture
Corporate culture, or the “way of life” of an organization, is a critical success factor for the development of enterprise architecture. Having the “right” shared beliefs, values, and norms is the difference between an EA that lives, breathes, and informs the organization’s decision making and an EA that sits around as useless shelf-ware. As an executive at steel manufacturer Nucor once said (quoted in Jim Collins’ Good to Great) “Twenty percent of our success is the new technology that we embrace . . . but 80 percent of our success is in the culture of our company.”
EA thrives in a corporate culture that has the following qualities: a collaborative team approach rather than a stove-piped or functional one; a culture of information sharing rather than hoarding; an organization that values and grows its people versus one that is just focused on the bottom line; an emphasis on standardization rather than technological differentiation; adherence to good governance rather than “acting first and asking permission later”; a process orientation rather than seeking technology for technology’s sake; and a culture of performance measurement rather than a “seat of your pants” management approach.
While thriving in such an organizational culture, EA is a proponent and contributor for maturing a corporate culture toward these ends.
GETTING THERE: FIRST, UNDERSTAND THE CULTURE
Because corporate culture is so critical to EA, a key step in developing an EA in the first place is to understand the culture of the enterprise. The chief enterprise architect must immerse himself or herself in the values, norms, and expectations that prescribe behavior in the organization. Such knowledge can be gained by the chief enterprise architect spending time with and talking to “the troops”; observing how they do business; reading policy, plans, and doctrine; and interviewing key executives, subject matter experts, and other stakeholders (internal and external) about the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
This research will result in an in-depth knowledge of the organization’s collective approach toward managing people, process, and technology. This knowledge can be leveraged as one calls on partners to participate in building and maintaining the EA with current, accurate, and complete information. Further, it can be drawn upon to facilitate teamwork and innovation to solve the most difficult challenges that the organization faces and package this into a target architecture and transition plan that has buy-in. Finally, implementing the architecture requires sacrifice by many people in being open to changing how they do things, whether in terms of the processes they perform, the way they share information, or the technology solutions they employ. In short, nothing gets done unless the culture supports it.
NEXT: IMPLEMENT EA CHANGES
Once one has an understanding of the existing culture, the enterprise architect is in a better position to implement the EA effectively—including making a number of fundamental cultural changes in the organization.
First, EA facilitates information sharing by developing an information repository that the organization can use to enhance decision making. The change here is that the EA captures, categorizes, and analyzes business and technical information in a synergistic manner, so that organizational leaders understand the relationship between their desired performance results, business processes, information requirements, and technology solutions. This requires that everyone share their respective subject expertise and collaboratively build and maintain the architecture repository, so that everyone can benefit. This is the reverse of the “information is power” or “information is currency” mind-set that typically pervades organizations.
Second, EA promotes planning by developing a target architecture and transition plan that guides business and IT decisions. Here, the change is from a free-wheeling, “technology for technology’s sake,” stove-piped culture to one that unifies around a common business-driven plan of action, with enterprise or common solutions and technology standards, and adheres to it.
Third, EA provides for IT governance, supporting a structured capital planning and investment control process. Typically, organizational lines of business like to make their own decisions on what they need and how to spend IT funds. As they say, they are the subject matter experts. It is a paradigm shift: to manage the IT funds centrally; for an IT investment review board, supported by the technical reviews of an EA review board, to oversee the process across lines of business; and for the investment board to authorize, prioritize, and fund those investments with an eye for what’s best for the enterprise, as opposed to any particular line of business.
Finally, EA with a human capital perspective, as I have proposed, values the organization’s employees as its most important asset. This is something that many organizations claim to do but, in reality, fail to accomplish. Human capital is critical for effective EA planning because it is people, and not technology, that have the capacity to integrate, process, and extract meaning from information, apply feelings and sentiment as appropriate (for example in reading the needs of their customers), think creatively, and innovate. Therefore, EA flourishes in, and supports, an environment of personal and professional growth for all employees. This is a change for organizations that traditionally reward key employees or executives but relegate the masses to perform without meeting their needs for work-life balance and without providing challenging, rewarding work, and offering developmental opportunities.
MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
As stated above, EA involves a certain amount of cultural change to the organization. Thus, EA practitioners need to understand human responses to change and how to deal with these effectively. (Although this response is largely psychological, it becomes cultural when groups of people tend to react to change in the same manner due to organizational life.)
The essential point to remember is that change is often painful for those affected by it. Some even theorize that people react to change the same way they do to death. In her 1969 book On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross outlined a five-stage model for responding to death. The initial stage, denial, is when a person thinks, “This can’t be happening.” During the next stage, anger, the person begins to think, “Why ME? It’s not fair!” (either referring to God, oneself, or anybody perceived, rightly or wrongly, as “responsible”). During the third stage, bargaining, the mindset shifts to “Just let me live to see my children graduate.” In the fourth stage, depression, the person’s emotions change to, “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?” During the final stage, acceptance, the person finally realizes that “It’s going to be okay.”
The Army’s Enterprise Solution Competency Center has drawn upon the Kübler-Ross model to develop a method for helping people respond more effectively to corporate change. These suggestions are useful for the enterprise architect. First, when denial sets in, “emphasize that change will happen” and “allow time for change to sink in.” Second, in response to anger, “distinguish between feelings and inappropriate behavior” and “redirect the blame from the change agent to the real reason necessitating the change” (goals of the organization/business case). Next, in the bargaining stage, “focus on how the individual or his or her area will benefit from the change.” After that, when depression sets in, “provide a series of specific next steps and follow-up frequently” and “reinforce positive actions the individual takes.” Finally, at the acceptance stage, “use the individual as a coach or mentor for others” and “provide recognition for his or her efforts.”
Change is hard on people and organizations, and enterprise architects need to be sensitive to this and work constructively to carefully guide adaptation to it.
SUMMING IT UP
Organizational culture is a deeply embedded life force of the enterprise. As such, the culture can help or hinder the implementation of an EA program. A culture that is collaborative, shares information, values and grows its people, emphasizes standards, adheres to good governance, is process oriented, and measures outcomes is one that enables EA to thrive. Conversely, EA is a driver for these cultural attributes.
By understanding the corporate culture, effectively managing change, and implementing EA-related behavioral changes, skillful enterprise architects realize the full potential of what their programs can add to the organization.
When one reflects on it, one comes to see that EA is an awesome responsibility—a stewardship, a trust. As stewards, EA practitioners are called to promote good governance and to exercise responsible care over the enterprise baseline and target architectures, as well as IT transition plans. By assessing the corporate culture, EA practitioners can determine whether the necessary elements are in place to get things done. By managing change, architects help employees overcome their resistance to and fear of change. And by implementing EA changes, practitioners positively affect the organization and position its culture for future success.
by Andrew N. Blumenthal
