I believe in developing enterprise architecture principles as a foundation for the definition of solutions that meet the strategic needs of an organization. These principles don’t reference technology—instead, they drive tech- nology decisions. If used correctly, these principles allow companies to avoid building the right solution the wrong way, or worse, building the wrong solution the right way. The focus of this article is not the Design Principles of the Architecture but the Principles that guide Enterprise Architects. These are principles that I shared with the Enterprise Architecture teams I led

1. | |September 2016
1CIOReview
CIOReview
ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE SPECIAL
CIOREVIEW.COM
T h e N a v i g a t o r f o r E n t e r p r i s e S o l u t i o n s
SEPTEMBER 07, 2016
Geoffrey Sparks,
CEO & Founder
ERIC DONNELLY,
SVP & CHIEF ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECT, PNC
MIKE ANDERSON,
CIO, CROSSMARK
IN MY OPINION
CIO INSIGHTS
SPARX SYSTEMS
INTELLIGENTLY
ARCHITECTING THE
INFORMATION SILOS

2. | |September 2016
26CIOReview
“The Architect”
Guiding Principles
By Leo Barella, VP & Chief Enterprise Architect, AstraZeneca [NYSE: AZN]
M
y career has been centered on
both the evolution and simpli-
fication of enterprise archi-
tectures for large enterprises.
I believe in developing enter-
prise architecture principles as a foundation for
the definition of solutions that meet the strategic
needs of an organization. These principles don’t
reference technology—instead, they drive tech-
nology decisions.
If used correctly, these principles allow
companies to avoid building the right solution
the wrong way, or worse, building the wrong
solution the right way.
The focus of this article is not the
Design Principles of the Architecture
but the Principles that guide
Enterprise Architects.
These are principles that I shared
with the Enterprise Architecture
teams I led:
1) Drive Innovation
Innovation shouldn’t start with a
conversation about technology—It
should start with a conversation about
capabilities, process, and people.
There are few enterprises using the
full set of features of the technologies
they’re investing in. Most times, the
acquisition of new technologies comes
with hiring of corporate executives
who have been able to drive change in
other companies leveraging a certain
technology and they replay their
recipe in a new organization.
Efficiency stems in process
optimization first, people next,
and then technology, yet too often
the process works the other way
around. We buy technology, train
people, and design processes to
make the most efficient use of the
technology. Even worse, we adapt the
technology to fit with an older and
non-optimized process.
2) Create High Value for
the Enterprise
Defining value can be complicated.
More enterprises need to spend time
defining what value means to their
customers and how every project
in their portfolio is contributing to
creating that value.
A good exercise here is to separate
projects that should continue to
receive investments versus ones that
will only provide marginal or isolated
value that won’t contribute to the
bottom line.
3) Be a Trusted Advisor
To be a trusted advisor, an Architect
must intimately understand their
industry—not just technology. A
conversation with the business
customers shouldn’t only be about
the technology, but about how the
solution you’re about to design will
set them apart from their competition.
A conversation about business
outcomes will always win your
customer’s attention.
4) Promote Collaborative
Decision-Making
Designing solutions is an iterative
process where details mature over time
due to increased mutual understanding
of the business/IT contribution to
solving the problem. My favorite
approach is to offer multiple solutions
and explain each in plain English
along with pros and cons, and short
and long-term implications of each
choice. While we all understand time
pressure and have all been in a classic
situation where there were “too many
cooks in the kitchen”, inclusion is key.
Leo Barella
CXO INSIGHTS

3. | |September 2016
27CIOReview
I believe in
developing
enterprise
architecture
principles as a
foundation for
the definition
of solutions
that meet
the strategic
needs of an
organization
5) Make Data Driven, Fact-
based Decisions
W. Edwards Deming once said, “Without
data, you’re just another person with
an opinion.” To promote change, it’s
important for Architects to effectively
describe the value of the proposed
solution. This happens when “HiPPOs”
(Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) run your
company, so in order to create buy-in for
change, you need to be armed with facts
to prove that the HiPPO might not the best
decision for the company.
6) Promote a “one team”
Culture across IT and
the Enterprise
This is the failure of most organizations,
especially ones with a federated operating
model for enterprise architecture. A
federated model for architecture makes
it difficult to drive the enterprise agenda
since every business unit behaves as its
own separate enterprise. In a climate
where both business and IT leaders are
running their own agenda and not the
enterprise agenda, it’s important an
enterprise Architect remains true to
the focus of the enterprise. A team is
successful when the sum of the capability
of the individual parts is exceeded by the
collective capability of the entire team.
7) If you can’t Build it Simply,
you don’t Understand it
To build it simply, the Architect must
have a firm understanding of the solution
impact to the current business architecture
and especially value streams, processes,
and business capabilities.
I know, we hear the word, “simplify”
a lot—IT solutions are often developed
in the vacuum of a single project with
little consideration given to the impact
of the enterprise. This results in
hundreds and sometimes thousands of
applications and technologies needing
to be maintained and supported.
8) Recognize Courage
and Success
Good Architects know how to build
personal networks and the best way to
do this is to freely give recognition of
success when it’s due. Since Architects
are typically introverted, recognizing
people with a simple “thank you” in an
e-mail goes a long way in building trust,
and will help you when you need to get
support in the future.
9) Think Big, Start Small, and
Scale Fast
The era of “build it and they will come”
is over—Rome wasn’t built in a day,
and you won’t build or transform an
enterprise in a day.
Visualize your goal and learn
to communicate it persuasively.
Organizations look for successful
execution and results, and often a small
example of success can be a better
explanation of your plan than the plan
on its own without any tangible results.
10) Promote a Culture of
High Performance
and Efficiency
Efficiency is the key to high
performance. It’s true some companies
can afford to buy their way to the right
solutions, but in my experience, I can
tell you that the resulting enterprise
architecture is bloated and inefficient.
I always start with asking myself
the question: If we were to start
this company today, what would
the architecture look like? The
answer is usually a very modern and
efficient architecture.