Understanding your enterprise architect

Over at CIO, they've got a great article for the managers of enterprise architects. Is one new to your company? They suggest following these simple rules:

1. Establish clear goals and expectations before day one.
2. Introduce the EA to the key players at a single meeting, no later than day two.
3. Run blocker for your EA.
4. Don't expect your EA to drive the business.
5. Your EA is not just the über-tech-geek.

SOA needs supporting architecture

Dan Rosanova recently wrote a post at CIO about how many companies often adapt SOA because it is what many companies are interested in when starting architeture. However, he notes that while SOA is a good thing, it may not perform to its higest potential if there aren't other architectural software structures in place to support it. Read the full article here.

Seven rules of business alignment

Alan Inglis at Cutter Consortium recently gave seven points that were important to an operating model for business alignment. They are:

• Alignment among all parties involved in business change is the issue: the business consists of multiple parties that need to be aligned; IT is just one of these parties.

• The starting point for alignment is communication.

• Enterprise architecture is a vehicle for facilitating alignment. It provides an information base that shows us where we are and allows us to assess potential futures.

• Enterprise architecture as an approach has a part to play in business strategy, business change, and its traditional home in IT.

• Enterprise architecture provides tools to understand, plan, and govern change, but for effective delivery, it must be integrated with program management.

• The information, stakeholders, and processes used to manage alignment through enterprise architecture are different but related for business strategy, business change, and IT. The change management organization must draw on people from across the organization at all levels.

• While alignment must be driven from "the business," the business side may not always be best equipped to do this. If this is the case, it may need support in the form of "business architecture as a service."

EA: The ability to manage change

In a recent article at Computing SA, they look at how architecture is just as important for an enterprise as it is for other things, such as bridges and skyscrapers. Many organizations failed to recognize this as their enterprises grew, and as a result, they were poorly structured. This particular article looks at how HR departments can grow and adapt enterprise architecture.

They look at how employees roles can be defined:

* Role accountability matrix: Showing where each person is responsible, accountable, consulted or informed. Such an approach allows management to determine ideal staffing levels with 100% precision. This aligns departmental and divisional staffing requirements with budgets, allowing absolute precision and accountability.
* Deriving and associating all supporting documents electronically and automatically with the person’s role, including job description, performance appraisal and performance against balanced scorecard.

CIO: The Case Against Cloud Computing

It seems that everyone's jumping on the bandwagon for cloud computing--but not just yet. CIO has come out with their case against this movement. According to CIO, they see that there are 5 impediments to cloud computing, and they are:

Current enterprise apps can't be migrated conveniently
Risk: Legal, regulatory, and business
Difficulty of managing cloud applications
Lack of SLA
Lack of cost advantage for cloud computing

What do you think? We're very interested to see what CIO has to say in their subsequent posts. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

2009 Focus for EA

In a recent article by James McGovern, he pointed out that companies are focusing too much on the processes and loosing the human aspect of the enterprise. He also believes that IT processes are not truly saving businesses money, and is certainly not getting more efficient. Do you believe this is true for EA? Do enterprises need to focus more on the human aspects of EA?

Worst practices of Enterprise Architects

James McGovern recently posted a list of the ten worst practices of enterprise architects. Here are his top 5:

1. Instead of focusing on perception management, concentrate on becoming a skilled negotiator. We need to strike balance between technical complexity and business needs. Don't just change perception, focus on reality.

2. Spread the wealth. Enterprise architects who are the single source of knowledge on a given topic within an enterprise is dangerous. We all need to plan for when we all get thrown under the bus and the best way to do this is to make all decisions transparent and all communications open.

3. Governance is not about financial controls but is all about a behavior model. Command and control doesn't work, neither does design by committee. Remember that the best architectures are realized by self-organizing teams.

4. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Enterprise architecture is not about posturing and hand waving. It is important to understand your limitations and ask for help when you don't have a clue.

5. Think like a developer. Way too many architects throw daggers at developers, yet we haven't thought about what it is like to walk in their shoes. By using minimalist architecture approaches such as keeping things simple, you increase the odds that the code will be as high quality as the architecture.

For the complete list, click here. Were there any practices you noticed missing from the list?

SOA is dead

Anne Thomas Manes recently declared SOA dead. This failed experiment was suppose to reduce companies costs and increase their agility. But as we've seen the economy fall, it has not held up to its promises.

The demise of SOA is tragic for the IT industry. Organizations desperately need to make architectural improvements to their application portfolios. Service-orientation is a prerequisite for rapid integration of data and business processes; it enables situational development models, such as mashups; and it’s the foundational architecture for SaaS and cloud computing. (Imagine shifting aspects of your application portfolio to the cloud without enabling integration between on-premise and off-premise applications.) Although the word “SOA” is dead, the requirement for service-oriented architecture is stronger than ever.

What do you think about the current state of SOA? Is it indeed dead?

SOA Governance

I recently came across an interview with enterprise architecture blogger Todd Biske, who talks about his new book SOA Governance. In part one and part two of his interview with Loraine Lawson at IT Business Edge, he gives some great insight on governance and SOA solutions. Enjoy!

Acquisition system of federal government in need of EA

According to Jim Williams, the acting GSA Administrator, the current acquisition system needs structure and a common way of looking at processes. Enterprise architecture would provide these things. It needs to have a standardized process, to be able to join various parts of the process and provide consistency.

With his vision, enterprise architecture would: change how the government looks at a system comprised of people, the complex processes, and how the technology fits in.

Growing interest in enterprise architecture

Recently, Lauren McKay pondered whether this new trend of growing interest in enterprise architecture would continue to build and grow into a sustainable process, or whether it was a trend that would eventually fade away.

Since enterprise architecture focuses on governance structure, business processes and business information, it is a trend that can keep going? The interest highlights a direct link between technology and the business done by the company trying to align the two key facets of their company.

What do you think? Is EA the growing trend, or is it something that companies are going to set aside in a few years?

New site to design your enterprise architecture

Barry and Associates recently announced that they have a new web site that will help companies design enterprise architecture. This particular page will contribute designers work through the decomposition process.

Doug Berry, the creator of the website, had this to say:
"The Decomposition Matrix is intended to augment your existing methodology. It provides designers and subject-matter experts with another way to work through issues related to the design of an enterprise architecture."

You can design the decomposition process of your enterprise architecture here:
http://www.designdecomposition.com/

Eight Characteristics for SOA Implementation

Mike Kavis at CIO.com recently compiled a list of the behaviors that can contribute to the efficient implementation of SOA.

-Strong Executive Level Sponsorship and SOA Evangelist
Someone in your company with power should be behind the project. This drive change throughout the organization and also helps work through any roadblocks that may arise during implementation.
-Define Completeness of Work within Services The business needs to understand why SOA is important to their needs. Fina a way to demonstrate that it's going to be an asset and value in the future
-Established a Center of Excellence (CoE) Appoint someone who will be in charge of the SOA initiative. Have controls in place to define to show the SOA results.
-Start With a Well-defined Business Process and Scale Up Start with one strong business process your company has in place then work up. And have your vision in place so you can reach that in the future.
-Define Completeness of Work within Services Put thought into which services are key business drivers. Only choose those businesses services that add value to the company.
-Quality Assurance is Key Be sure to include performance, security and governance testing in your plans.
-ROI Is Difficult to Achieve Initially and Is Realized Over Time Value is maximized with architecture over time. ROI will begin to develop and spread as the projects gain maturity.
-Deliver Substantial Business Value

Enterprise architecture in the next presidential term

According to Andy Blumenthal at User-Centric Enterprise Architecture, enterprise architecture is one of the seven things that is not likely to differ when a new president takes office. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that it's a useful tool for Chief Information Officers. Although it is a hard task to set up and manage, the benefits of a successful structure are worth it.

He concludes his article with this:

EA will not only be saved, but will continue to thrive. As global competition continues to heat up, the pace of technology change spins faster and faster, and constrained resources continue to press us to do ever more with ever less, our organizations will be forced to respond in strength. Organization’s will continue look to enterprise architecture to better plan business process improvement and IT enablement and to govern sound investments and change. User-centric EA will keep the efforts focused on valuable and actionable architectures.

Government's enterprise architecture still evolving

The government's enterprise architecture assessment framework is going to change. The changes that are occurring are good, but can't happen too quickly, as reported by FCW.com. Kshmendra Paul, chief architect at OMB's Office of E-government and information Technology recently outlined the plan which will include finalizing Version 3's framework.

They are currently deciding which direction to take the framework, as:

Under both the current assessment framework and the proposed revision, OMB considers the degree of completion, whether the agency actually uses the architecture, and its results. However, the proposed one lacks the emphasis on recent concerns such as IPv6 migration and change management, favoring instead factors such as performance management integration and the alignment between the agency's enterprise transition plan and its OMB Exhibit 300s, which make the business case for proposed investments.

They also pointed out that the new EA system will most likely not be changed by the new administration coming into the White House.