Opening Thoughts: Overcoming the Mistakes of the Past
There once was a time when Enterprise Architecture was the domain of the anointed few who sat in their ivory tower and tossed technology wisdom over the wall. If the users had their own ideas, the architecture police arrived to prevent unapproved designs. This triggered religious debates over technology, IT infighting, and generally brought projects to a standstill. The outcome was negative on the value scale and led to marginalized, or worse, terminated EA functions. Does that sound familiar?
If that scenario is part of the history of your organization, you probably bear the stigma of “enterprise architecture—mistakes of the past.” There are many similar scenarios; Strategy-paper Syndrome, Paralysis of Analysis, Blue-sky Perfectionism, attempts at Big-bang Architecture and many other execution errors chipped away at the credibility of EA. While the theory and concepts of EA are sound, in practice many organizations have tripped on execution. There is no blame here. Many of these mistakes were due to the very human failings of individuals and their leaders who were thrust into the EA role without preparation.
While perhaps not a surprise to the many readers of A&G, the aggregate historical success rate of EA programs is not what we would like it to be, and that stigma still occasionally haunts us. In fact, Architecture & Governance 2005 Survey Findings reveals that about half of A&G readers still feel “cultural acceptance of EA or IT Governance” is a major hurdle for the above reasons, or because EA is new to their organizations. The good news, however, is that acceptance of the EA discipline is improving. Success rates have grown to nearly 50 percent in recent years. One theory is that this is because expectations are more reasonable.
I, on the other hand, attribute much of that success to practitioners learning to “apply EA to real-world activities,” in other words, to “make EA real.” In Step with Doug Rousso exemplifies that determined approach. Jeff Kaplan also, in the excerpt from his book Strategic IT Portfolio Management: Governing Enterprise Transformation, offers perspectives on how to use EA to enable, not constrain, the organization. I have observed that the best EA functions do indeed enable their organizations, becoming part of the management infrastructure as the foundation of an IT Governance ecosystem. These EA programs become nearly invisible and operate as virtual functions, participating in IT Governance and driving results across multiple stakeholder domains. They deliver value early, in small steps, and repeatedly deliver as the program grows and matures.
If history repeats itself, as it often does, our next great challenge will be with that larger emerging IT Governance discipline, the need for which is described in The 10 Symptoms of a Lack of Good IT Governance. Expect to discover that the major inhibitors to ITG success are also cultural, with a lack of tolerance for process and governance change leading the pack. I hope that the lessons learned from the early failings of EA will help us with ITG. With luck and a dash of skill, wisdom will prevail over history and we will be pragmatic, we’ll approach ITG in a systematic way, demonstrate value early and often, and mature in a stepwise fashion. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of our past.
by George Paras, Editor, Architecture & Governance Magazine
