TRENDS: Enterprise Architecture, increased Project Spending Will Stress Systems

Enterprise architecture moves out of the back room and into the limelight in 2005. The intersection of three immutable forces — compliance, privacy, and regulatory requirements; an increase in application and infrastructure outsourcing; and continued pressure from business concerns to both cut costs and deliver increased value — will elevate conversations about architecture within the organization. Unfortunately, politics, staffing, and overblown processes will prevent most organizations from taking advantage of the opportunities presented.

A Perfect Storm for Architecture

In 2005 we will see an uptick in IT spending, opening the gates on previously postponed applications and on new development required to meet regulatory and legal requirements. However, architecture planning has not laid the groundwork required to be in front of this spending at most organizations. As a result, contention between business groups, application development groups, and the architecture groups will rise. Unfortunately, there will not be any winners in the ensuing battles.

Some Key Drivers Are Changing The Landscape

There are some key forces behind the changes that will characterize the enterprise application architecture in 2005. These major drivers include:

• Application spending is expected to rise in 2005. Overall IT spending is expected to rise 6% in 2005, with software and outsourcing spending each rising above this average. New applications will be bought or built, but not necessarily by internal application development groups. Application design and integration demands will likewise increase.
• Data architecture is lagging. Many architecture groups have a good handle on infrastructure and application standards. However, few have been able to execute a data architecture strategy. Study, design, documentation, and governance systems  for data definitions, data ownership and usage,  and data transfer without the use of third- party extract, transfer, and load (ETL) tools are still more than 12 months away for many organizations. Without data standards, new applications will not seamlessly integrate.
• The business is unwilling to wait. Delay is not an acceptable option. Business users have needs and business groups are willing (and in many cases required) to fund new applications projects. Many of these projects have been two years in the waiting and no one is willing to postpone until architectural standards are in place.
• Staffing is woefully inadequate. The same pressure on IT organizations to reduce costs has limited staffing for the architecture groups at organizations. For example, a large pharmaceutical company we talked with recently only has a four-person architecture group. While a central group of this size is typical of many medium to large organizations, it must be complemented by additional resources in the field to get in front of projects and act as architectural consultants to avoid contentious review cycles late in the process. Enforcing current standards   and moving up to deal with application and data architecture issues with such a limited staff is impossible.

2005 Trends To Watch In Enterprise Architecture

Because of these key drivers, four significant trends to watch in 2005 include:

• The first wave of 2005 applications may miss architectural review. The various planning and governance processes put in place during the past few years are still untested in the face of the increased load expected. Business folks will demand rapid implementation and ride roughshod over the processes if they sense a potential delay. However, it is not too late to establish the right processes for the wave of applications to be planned during the second half of the year. Additionally, architecture groups should work to integrate sound architectural processes into the acquisition and management of outsourced applications to ensure integration and compliance with internal standards and needs.
• Architecture groups will play the compliance card to call for more staff. With the first wave of spending complete, architecture groups will use lessons learned to establish the sound criteria for both new applications and maintenance of current applications. Playing the compliance card may be the only way to increase staff with continued pressures to make do with less.
• Focus will move up to data architecture, but politics will hinder progress. Most technology battles have been won. As we are in a period of absorption of existing technologies, this is a good time to move up the ladder to look at applications, and especially data. Such a move has the potential   to elevate the stature of the architecture group, as business applications and data can be more easily linked to   business value.
• Politics will be the big stumbling block to acceptance. Who owns the applications, who designs them, and who has access to the data are the big issues. These are more political than technical. Architecture groups will need to improve negotiation and facilitation skills to bring multiple business users with multiple business concerns together to solve the problem.

by Chip Gliedman, a vice president in the IT Management & Services research team at Forrester Research. He is a noted Enterprise Architecture researcher, and developed the Total Economic Impact™ (TEI™) program to help clients make decisions about the overall financial value of IT strategies.