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?

Take our Poll: Is SOA dead?

We’ve gotten quite some responses from our LinkedIn group members in a recent discussion thread, and so here is a quick poll you can take on whether or not you believe SOA is dead. We’ll be posting the results next Friday. Happy polling!

Metastorm ProVision Used by Delta

Delta's IT professionals have adopted Metastorm ProVision for all of their Enterprise Architecture needs. An article at ITworld.com goes into the specific processes behind Delta's decision to go with Metastorm ProVision. A statement by a Delta professional properly relayed the reasoning behind going with something new and different with EA,

"Start modeling your environment and showing the impact of conflicting strategies before you’re engaged officially, using whatever published documentation you can. Once you gain the support of your most visible leaders, brag, brag, brag. Others will soon want to be on that same bandwagon of success, able to effectively plan and execute any strategy.”

What do you think of this quote? Do you see your company moving forward with EA technologies?

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?

Will you pay for open source in 2009?

It seems that more open source applications will cost in 2009, will you pay? Infoworld has an interesting response to CNET's open source ideas that definitely deserves a good read. Most people think that open source means free, but CNET disagrees.

What are your thoughts?

Free versus paid offers to completely different business models and it will be interesting to see how each hold up in the upcoming year.

Share with us your comments here or on LinkedIn.

What is Enterprise Architecture?

Is there universal definition for EA? Chris Potts from CIO.com recently answered this question found on LinkedIn in this post. Here’s the question:

Do you think we need to have a universally agreed definition of Enterprise Architecture? If so what do you think it should be, in one sentence, and why?

Chris states that there is really no agreed definition of EA, but it is very important to understand what business executives think the two component words mean. Many people mistakenly believe that the term “Enterprise” means that EA has something to do with technology, when only IT at times only represents 21 percent of a company’s operating costs. So instead of coining both terms, Chris has instead summed up his definition of EA in one sentence.

"The art or science of designing and constructing undertakings, especially bold or difficult ones, and of the readiness to be involved in them; the style of such undertakings."

What’s your definition of EA?

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?

Top Tech Resolutions of 2009

Moving forward in 2009, its time to work better with less. Infoworld.com stripped 2009 down to the bare essential goals that all companies should aim for this year. Among them, get out of old IT dogma and archaic thinking. This business climate will leave old thinkers in the dust. Don't settle for less just because you have to work with less. Think future think progress. Definitely read their resolutions and add a few of your own.

The Importance of Enterprise Architecture

David Longworth does a great job of discussing the importance of Enterprise Architecture in this latest article in CIO. The major theme is summed up by this quote,

“For EA to move beyond its -early-adopter phase, more architects looking at the bigger picture and less navel gazing and protectionism is the order of the day -- and that will be led by the CIO”

Take a couple of minutes to go over the article. Do you agree that more architects are looking at the bigger picture?

Happy Holidays from EA

We will be taking some much needed time off for the holidays. We'd like to thank you for your readership and we encourage you to check back with us next year for more innovative thought, perspective and news surrounding the world of enterprise architecture.

We wish you a joyous holiday season!

Evolve EA: Best of 2008

With 2008 drawing to a close, we're going to share the best articles of the year. We look forward to keeping you up to date on enterprise architecture in 2009!

Microsoft’s Enterprise Architecture Toolkit (EATK)
Types of Enterprise Architecture
FEMA Gives EA Subcontract to REI and IBM
What is the role of a Enterprise Architect in a programme?
Putting the 'E' in TOGAF

Sun Microsystems Value Proposition

James McGovern highlights in his latest post in Enterprise Architecture how he has recently switched IDEs away from Eclipse and towards Netbeans. James believes that Sun Microsystems does not do a good job of selling their value proposition. Do you agree?

What are the Benefits of Enterprise Architecture?

It seems as if upper management still doesn’t quite understand the benefits of EA. So here’s a post from Shrikant Mulik on his blog in which he lists some business-related benefits of EA taken from a research briefing written by Jeanne Ross and Peter Weill. I’ve listed them below.

The business-related benefits include the following:

• shared business platforms - greater data sharing and integrated process standards
• senior management and business unit management satisfaction
• strategic business impact - operational excellence, customer intimacy, product leadership and strategic agility

What to Put in your First Release of EA?

Tony Abel, CEO & Chief Solutions Architect at dotNet Framework Solutions, mentions in this post on CIO Knowledge Base that a good enterprise architecture model always starts with the business element in order to encompass the entirety of the enterprise. Tony always begins his projects with top-management so that they can be more educated to the essences of enterprise architecture. Do you have a similar process in your organization?

More Findings from the Infosys Survey

Infosys recently completed their 3rd annual survey on Enterprise Architecture which you can view here. Sohel Aziz brings up some interesting findings in this post on the Infosys blog when he mentions:

One of the key findings is that participants of the survey saw Enterprise Architecture as a capability that was core to their business and inherently part of their organization's crown jewels. However, given the daunting set of activities that most Enterprise Architecture functions have to execute today, the opportunity to work with ESPs and enlist them to execute some of these activities is real. In other words, some activities (the more tactical ones), can be outsourced to a strategic vendor partner.

Read the full post here.