A transformative role for Enterprise Architecture (EA) in today's dynamic Enterprises

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Enterprise Architecture’s Transformative Role
Published: July 28, 2013 - Fru Louis
No one would knock down walls in a building indiscriminately
without understanding the building architecture.
You could make apparently small changes and the whole building
potentially could collapse.
Similarly, you could make apparently small changes to an enterprise
and if you didn’t understand the Enterprise Architecture, the
apparently small changes could potentially render the whole
enterprise dysfunctional.
John Zachman
CURRENT STATE OF THINGS
Due to the rapidly changing nature of businesses today, i.e. mobile,
web, social, cloud, outsourcing etc., decision makers in companies
are finding themselves increasingly being asked to do more with
less. At the back of their minds, the following questions are being
asked:
 Right things: Are we doing the right things?
 Right Way: Are we doing them the right way?
 Well: Are we getting it done well?
 Benefits: Are we getting the benefits?
At the core of these questions is the challenge that companies are
always looking to do the right things right.
Over the years, Enterprise Architecture (EA) has proven itself as a
competent solution to helping companies do the right things right.
Unfortunately, even when there are people, processes, or practices
like this that help companies do the right things right, it remains
stubbornly true that nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that
never happened. And this reality has posed great challenges for
investing in EA.
The accepted modus operandi in the industry has always been that
an EA practice provides no intrinsic value upfront. Even according
to John Zachman, the pioneer of the Zachman EA Framework, it is
not possible for one to really justify the cost for investing in EA as
EA when implemented usually does not save money in the current
accounting period.
So the question becomes why should one build out an Enterprise
Architecture Practice if the ROI can’t immediately be justified?
Interestingly, the answer to this question is neither art nor science.
In the analysis below, we would make the case that EA has the
capacity to play a transformative role in helping companies
understand their DNA. In so doing, EA can help companies do the
right things right which equates to better managing change, reduce
complexity, keep alignment with the business strategy and also
drive innovation.
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Change

1. EA’S ROLE AS CHANGE ENABLER
One of the most predictable factors in modern organizations is
change.
Everything changes, both business and circumstance. Companies
change either in response to Crisis Situation, Mergers &
Acquisitions, Internal & External pressures, new SWOT landscape
(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), New
Technologies, Change for the Sake of Change, or Change for
Experimentation. Enterprise architecture (EA) is a discipline
suitably equipped for proactively leading enterprise responses to
change situations by identifying and analyzing the change factors
and then executing a strategy to deal with them.
“The only thing that is constant is change”
Heraclitus
Change is usually disruptive and seldom welcomed. Unfortunately,
when companies are looking to change, either voluntarily or by
compellation, they embark on training or communication as a means
to manage the change.
But, while training and communication are effective levers, they
aren’t usually good enough to get to the finish line.
Adaptation
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but
those who can best manage change.”
Charles Darwin
Successful and sustainable change requires skill, planning, and a
tailored approach to the sought after outcome, and that is where
Enterprise Architecture comes in.
In a transition process, what gives people and organizations the
courage and energy to change is their commitment to a compelling
imperative for the change. This imperative can take the form of a
story, outlined as the vision, mission, values or goals to be achieved.
This story otherwise called a "change story" must be sufficiently
rich enough to communicate the need for change to all levels of the
organization i.e. from C-level executives to workers in the fields.
Why, what, who, when, how questions must be asked and answered.
The answers to these questions provides that compelling imperative
(change story) that everyone in the organization can buy into and
work towards achieving.
EA's role as a change enabler is therefore to identify the change story
for the business and work towards making it happen. To do so, the

EA team must set out on an expedition to answer these change
questions:
 Why should my company move from an "as-is" state to
a "to-be" state?
 When should my company move from an "as-is" state to
a "to-be" state?
 Who should move my company from an "as-is" state to
a "to-be" state?
 What is required to move my company from an "as-is"
state to a "to-be" state?
 How should my company move from an "as-is" state to
a "to-be" state?
The answers to these questions helps the EA practice in creating
informed, clear roadmaps with tangible artifacts, models, activities,
and execution strategy, that the company can follow to implement a
change story.
Such models developed by the EA practice facilitates change by
allowing queries to determine impacts of change variables on the
complex business and technological solutions of the organization.
If the impact of change can easily be quantified and understood, then
companies looking to adapt or change will find it easier to do so.
In medicine, we know from history that it is possible to diagnose
and treat a fractured bone without an X-Ray, but the process is a lot
easier for doctors if they have an X-Ray scan in hand. Same
conditions apply to decision makers in today’s organizations.
The factors that necessitate change will always be present. The value
EA provides is to do an overall X-Ray of the Enterprise. The outputs
from this X-Ray exercise can then be analyzed by decision makers
who are looking to build adaptive capacities into the core
competence of their business.
Once adaptive capabilities are built into the enterprise, the resulting
adaptive enterprisei can then more easily respond to change factors
from the external and internal environment and also can allow for
an easier response to those inevitable disruptions that cause
enterprises to fundamentally change.
2. EA’S ROLE AS ALIGNMENT KEEPER
More often than not, Business Needs in most Enterprises are difficult
to ascertain, hence causing great disconnect and miss-alignment
between business and IT stakeholders. This primary and sometimes
devastating disconnect between business and IT priorities is often
cited as the primary driver behind the failure of most enterprise
initiatives. Fortunately, EA has the capacity to remedy the situation
by providing the enterprise with a very broad perspective that not
only bridges the alignment gaps between business and IT, but also
ensures total cohesion between the two. Bernard Scottii (pg. 30)
elegantly captured this idea of cohesion when he wrote the formula
in his book that:
A corollary from Scott’s formula is that an enterprise cannot succeed
on Strategy alone. Neither can it succeed on Business alone, or
Technology alone. All those three must come together and work in
synergy to guarantee success in the enterprise. So, one of the most
important goals of an Enterprise Architecture Practice is therefore
to bring alignment and cohesion between strategy, business and
Technology.

The role of technology in today’s business landscape is changing
and is becoming increasingly salient. In the past, businesses had an
IT department (consisting of geeks and nerds usually secluded off
in the basement or some darkly
lit room) because they wanted
to. Today, businesses have an IT
department because they have
to.
With technology now playing
an increasingly sophisticated
role in business process, it
becomes very important for
leaders to ensure that IT remains
aligned with the business.
Without alignment, IT easily
gets out of sync with the
business or becomes nothing
more than a delivery engine for
business projects. Or even
worst, IT goes off its own
tangent acquiring and or developing the latest and greatest
technological gadgets, which are cool in as of themselves, but have
little relevance to solving the business needs.
Because of this potential for misalignment, it is extremely important
for EA to play the role of referee and keep both IT and Business
ambitions under control. And, that ability for EA to keep alignment
between Business and IT in an organization often
hinges on the EA team's capacity to craft a
roadmap for the organization.
By working with both Business and Technical
liaisons, the EA team can ascertain the vision of
the business and produce roadmaps documents
with one, three, five or even ten years plans of
how that vision will be implemented.
These Roadmap documents are important for
reaching a consensus amongst stakeholders, thus
guaranteeing alignment. Once all parties have
reached an agreement, the roadmap becomes a
planning tool that depicts how the business can
utilize IT to execute on its intentions.
Another piece of the puzzle is the management
of the technology portfolio. It is essential for the
Alignment
Here’s what your typical CEO says to
their IT team, “I have spent a lot of
money in IT but I don’t think what
you guys are doing with that money
is in line with the plans I have for the
enterprise.” When your CEO thinks
this way, something is seriously
wrong.
John Zachman
Enterprise Architecture Practice to manage the company’s portfolio
EA = S + B + T
Enterprise Architecture = Strategy + Business + Technology

and keep documentation of all aspects of the enterprise i.e. business
processes, applications, infrastructure, and data.
This documentations help the enterprise in managing costs and also
assessing any potential technical gaps within the enterprise.
Without EA to play referee between Business & IT and delivering a
solid portfolio or business process management (BPM) solution, it
becomes easy for costs to spiral out of control – a frequent source of
angst between Business and IT leaders in most enterprises.
3. EA’S ROLE AS COMPLEXITY MANAGER
The basic tenet of Entropy states: “A closed system if left alone
would tend to move from order to disorder; simplicity to increased
complexity.” Organizations are systems, albeit closed systems.
“A closed system if left alone would tend to move from
order to disorder; simplicity to increased complexity.”
The Law of Entropy
Hence they are bound by the law of entropy, with an inherent
tendency to gravitate towards the state of VUCA iii (Volatile,
Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous).
Sophisticated frameworks like the Cynefin Framework iv or
Thorngate’s postulate of commensurate complexityv have been
developed to provide a typology of context for describing
organizational systems. But still the problem of complexity in
organizations remain a wicked one.
Whether Essential or Cyclomatic vi , Complexity of any form is
something that cannot be ignored and must be dealt with head on.
Complexity in organizations usually results from: Growth, Mergers
and Acquisitions, Security needs, Change in business strategy, new
technology, spin-offs, E.t.c.
As Einstein once said, any intelligent fool can make things bigger
and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage
to move in the opposite direction. Complexity is certainly not scarce
in organization and it usually starts small and grows out of control
due to the culture in most companies.
Often a company’s culture and current employees are more focused
on the project at hand rather than looking at their environment from
an enterprise standpoint. Because of this, small localized problems
and deficiencies quickly spiral out of control because no one is
thinking about solutions strategically.
Furthermore, when companies make calculations on investing, they
spend much of their investment money towards fixing symptoms as
opposed to addressing root cause issues. Because of this simple
miscalculation, once simple problems that could have been dealt
with easily then become complex over time.
Entropy

Architecture enables you to accommodate complexity and change.
If you don’t have Enterprise Architecture, your enterprise is not
going to be viable in an increasingly complex and changing external
environment.
John Zachman
Even worst, as the complexity in organization grows, and the
symptomatic problems become apparent, many Companies
unfortunately honker down and dedicate more resources towards
fighting fires, solving short term tactical solutions and not
developing the long-term strategic plans for dealing with complexity
that a good EA practice requires.
EA, with its strategic thinking and long term planning capabilities is
suitably equipped for dealing with the ever growing complexity in
the companies. EA role as the visionary vanguard is therefore to
evaluate the complexity of the business and technology platforms,
and other factors to effectively determine the "as-is" state and forge
the "to-be" state.
To achieve any degree of success in this goal, the EA practice must
command a thorough understanding of not only the business
processes, but the technological capabilities as well.
With this understanding, artifacts, models, blueprints and roadmap
documents are then produced to serve as a repository of knowledge
for the enterprise.
Generally, we know that knowledge and complexity are inversely
proportional. The more knowledge people have of their systems,
processes and outcomes, the less complex it becomes. So, EA’s role
is therefore reduce complexity by analyzing and increasing the
overall knowledge in the systems.
Complexity
We can simulate performance of
airplanes in 3D, why can’t we do it
with enterprises? This is where we
should be heading - a stage where we
can actually simulate how certain
changes or decisions will affect the
enterprise.
John Zachman
Impact

4. EA’S ROLE AS INNOVATION FACILITATOR
The business world is a complex adaptive system that is becoming
increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA).
In the face of such wicked problems, companies are realizing that
innovation is not just a strategy that is encouraged, but is almost
required.
The innovation required in today’s business environments is not just
limited to revolutionary bold leaps in Enterprise Business processes
or value stream, but includes augmentations to the sustainability and
resilience of the business model. For ease of analysis, Innovation
herein is broken down into two types, viz: Evolutionary Innovation
and Revolutionary Innovations.
Evolutionary Innovation is the stepwise change and response to
market forces that companies must do nowadays to stay afloat the
stiff competition they face. On the other hand Revolutionary
innovation constitutes the bold and transformative leaps that
fundamentally changes a company’s business model or the industry
at large - Think Apple with the iPod.
The marriage between EA and Innovation is arguably a match made
in heaven. But this happy matrimony only happens if companies can
correctly manage the critical success factors and other contextual
issues that support innovation. If not managed appropriately,
companies seeking revolutionary innovation through EA may find
themselves embroiled in a turf war with brutal bureaucracy and
structural anarchy of epic proportions.
RISK
Few enterprises today have descriptive representations that depict
how the enterprise works. Therefore, change can only be
accommodated by trial and error. As complexity and the rate of
change increase, risk of trial and error increases. Architecture
provides the structure to predict the impact of change, reduce the
risk and maintain enterprise viability in a changing environment.
John Zachman
This tension of innovating through EA happens because EA is often
seen as the antithesis of Innovation and both sides usually have
competing goals. EA which naturally produces artifacts,
“Don’t tell employees what to do. Rather, tell them what needs to be
accomplished. Let them figure out how to do it. More likely than not,
they shall devise a better way than any manager can think of.”
Management 101
standardization, and conformity is quick to avert overt risk taking.
On the other hand, Innovation (both revolutionary and evolutionary)
naturally subscribes to a risk taking culture in an organization. It
thrives on freedom, minimum standardization/conformity and more
risk taking. Unfortunately, the culture in many companies is

generally skewed towards risk avoidance or mitigation - hence
reducing the chances for innovation.
But this is where EA comes in. First, it is fundamentally wrong to
see EA as the epitome of all things wrong with standardization. EA
promotes standardization, but standardization is not all EA does.
Broadly, EA helps creates services, standards and an architecture
with repeatable building blocks that increases both the effectiveness
and efficiency of the business.
The outputs, artifacts, models and road map documents produced by
an EA team helps reduce unnecessary redundancies and increases
reusability.
Once the EA team has been engaged to help define and implement
an architecture for an organization, then individual business units
within the organization merely have to see where they “plug-in” to
it to get their work done - as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel
all over again. The time and resources saved from re-inventing the
wheel, is valuable time and resources that can be dedicated towards
innovative and risk taking initiatives.
Secondly, EA helps creates standards, which may seem a hindrance
to some who are looking to innovate. But as mentioned earlier,
standards in an organizations is not the antithesis of innovation.
According to some Gartner publications, in companies that have
standards, especially in the IT arena, support costs are drastically
lowered, allowing the IT staff to do one thing, and do it well vs.
having to support a wide-variety of systems, but doing none of them
particularly well. Standards also makes outcomes predictable and
repeatable. Hence reducing overall uncertainty and potential for
huge fundamental errors.
Finally, contrary to what many people believe, Innovation in
enterprises does not have to be serendipitous. Innovation is
something that companies have to actively pursue. To do so,
companies must first de-emphasize EA’s role as being solely
focused on standardization and instead looking at it more
holistically as EA being a discipline that enables consistency,
repeatability and reusability of patterns – and these are all factors
that foster innovation.
Results
Learning and innovation go
hand in hand. The arrogance
of success is to think that
what you did yesterday will
be sufficient for tomorrow.
William Pollard

CONCLUSION
As we seen above, EA has a vital role to play in organizations when
it comes to change,
complexity, alignment
and innovation. As Karl
Weick, an organizational
theorist and one of the
leading thought leaders in
business theory put it:
While agreeing one
hundred percent with
Karl’s perspective would
not be the most
constructive stance to
take, but by looking in the
viewpoint of EA as being
the Change Enabler,
EA and Evolution
Alignment Keeper, Complexity Manager and Innovation Facilitator
as espoused in the analysis above, one clearly sees there is a great
need for EA in today’s business environments.
Again, as Warren Bennis, the great American organizational theorist
once put it “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into
reality.” Today, many decision makers have visions for the
companies. They are also looking to translate their visions into
reality and are out in search of tools to help in that effort.
When successfully applied, EA can play the transformational role
and drastically help companies translate vision to reality by
providing the following competencies.
 Create Models: Ability to create models that serve as the
Enterprise compass for effective diagnosis
 Taxonomy Repositories: Better taxonomy repositories that
serve as reference for better understanding the Enterprise
anatomy.
 Enterprise Deficiencies and Opportunities: Offer insights
into various Enterprise opportunities or deficiencies that
adversely affect the running and managing of the Enterprise
and possible reasons behind them.
 Change Impacts: Ability to model and predict change
impacts on the overall enterprise.
Evolution and enterprise
architecture are very much
related. From a cynical point of
view, you could say that the
forces of evolution have shaped
most enterprise architectures.
To quote one famous analyst2:
“Most of you have an accidental
architecture. I mean, I can only
hope you didn’t deliberately
design what you have in place.”
Frank Buytendijk
The effective organization is “garrulous clumsy garrulous, clumsy,
superstitious, hypocritical, monstrous, octopoid, wandering and grouchy”
Karl Weick

RESULTS ORIENTED APPROACH
EA’s goal is to provide pragmatic, objective, unbiased and
prescriptive feedback for companies looking to undertake
transformational changes to business i.e. going from vision to
reality. But despite
the possible
transformational
benefits of EA outline
herein, decision
makers looking to
adopt the practice
have to remember that
“Enterprise
Architecture” is not a
time bound project or
initiative and hence
not treat it as such. It’s
almost by nature that
companies have a
tendency to get
complex and loose
However beautiful
the strategy, you
should occasionally
look at the results.
Winston Churchill
alignment with business objectives. This is the primary challenge
faced by companies today and the situation is even amplified by the
accelerating pace of technology change.
The direct benefits of implementing an EA practice abound, but to
be successful, Enterprise Architecture must be embraced by the
enterprise as a journey undertaken with the business, and not a
project that produces only technical artifacts or UML diagrams as it
output.
Also, it might be useful to mention that EA itself is a maturing
field/discipline that unfortunately comes in too many flavors.
Significant efforts are still needed to standardize the discipline of
EA for the specific needs of individual businesses. (See the effort
conducted by "LEADing Practice"vii, The Federation of Enterprise
Architecture Professionals (FEAPO)viii, et al.).
Because of this potential diversity in the implementation of EA,
decision makers must approach the EA journey with a sense of
cautious optimism – investing generously and demanding results
even more generously. There are lots of choices to choose from, but
the EA journey they choose to embark on must engage the enterprise
in a way that is sufficiently rich and expressive enough to make the
transition from the vision to reality as easy as possible.
When successfully applied, EA has the capacity to reverse the
fortunes of a struggling team(s), prevent decision deadlock, extract
results from a bunch of touchy superstars within business teams, and
fight constructively with top-management colleagues, all in an effort
to present business and IT leaders with signature-ready
recommendations for adjusting policies and steering decision
making towards the evolution of a desired future state. This is the
Holy Grail of enterprise performance and this is what
Transformational EA is about.
Results

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Schekkerman, Jaap. Enterprise Architecture Good Practices
Guide: How to Manage the Enterprise Architecture
Practice. Victoria, BC: Trafford Pub., 2008. Print.

About NextGen
NextGen Global Solutions, LLC. (NGG: IT) is an information technology consulting, research and advisory company. We deliver the technology-related
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i Adaptive Enterprise: http://www.adaptive.com/products/adaptive-enterprise-architecture-manager/
ii Bernard, Scott A. An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture. [Bloomington, IN]: AuthorHouse, 2005. Print. (Pg. 30)
iii Living and Leading in a VUCA world. http://www.thunderbird.edu/article/living-and-leading-vuca-world
iv More about the Cynefin Framework can be read at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin
v More details about Thorngates postulate is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorngate's_postulate_of_commensurate_complexity
vi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_complexity
vii http://www.leadingpractice.com/frameworks/
viii http://www.feapo.org/

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