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7 Steps to Transform Your Enterprise Architecture Practice

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Enterprise architecture is the business and technology blueprint that details your business entities, the visible properties of those entities, and the relationships between them.

:It is driven by, and must support:• enterprise goals• business processes and information• organizational structure and culture• IT systems and applications.

?Enterprise architecture should be an essential component to any business operation….

…But is it?

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Enterprise architecture has a critical role in driving organizational success.But many professionals struggle to advance enterprise architecture practices. ?Why? IT leaders and business peers don’t always understand enterprise architecture’s role in strategic planning, application rationalization, and business/IT alignment.

!On-going economic woes haven’t helped when it comes to driving greater investment in enterprise architecture programs …

…even though enterprise architecture efforts can slash maintenance costs by eliminating overlapping systems and streamlining processes!

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What enterprise architects should be– the architects of an organization’s business and technology blueprint–doesn’t change.

What Does?How they achieve enterprise architecture’s ends!

!Enterprise architecture practices need to

Transform.

?How so?Follow along to see how you can bring new vitality to the enterprise architecture function and efforts.

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Step 1: Partner with the Business Step 2: Team with IT Admin Step 3: Consult with Security Step 4: Put Results Before Theory Step 5: Don’t Just Model–Transform! Step 6: Future-Proof Enterprise Architecture Step 7: Rethink Funding Avenues

Steps to Enterprise Architecture Success

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Step One: Partner with BusinessEnterprise architecture is all about integrating business and IT. IT has to be infused with, and informed, by business context and processes. Enterprise architecture must be strongly grounded in enterprise drivers and challenges.

“The artificial walls between business and IT are crashing down, and enterprise architecture is the bridge to integrate business and IT.” Philip Allega, Research Vice President at Gartner

?Ask yourself:Do you understand all stakeholder viewpoints, from end user to business owner?Can you translate that into an organizational model that embraces strategic business objectives?

!By 2015, Gartner predicts:Increased adoption of enterprise architecture will further IT’s alignment with the organization’s culture, future-state vision and delivery of business value outcomes. 95% of organizations will support multiple approaches to enterprise architecture.

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Step Two: Team with IT AdminEnterprise architecture is about tearing down walls and building bridges.

?Did you know? During the Bush administration, Congress nearly stopped funding federal enterprise architecture efforts? Why did enterprise architecture get a bad rap? No coordination with IT once enterprise architects turned over blueprints to admins after months and years of work on them. End results didn’t live up to promises. The time to change that image is now: The nation’s first Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, counts enterprise architecture among his top responsibilities.Partnership Pays. With lines of business that were resistant to change, enterprise architects at Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta first partnered with IT in an effort to transform its enterprise architecture, according to a reported case study in Computer Weekly.

What does teamwork look like in practice?Example: Enterprise architects and software engineers who bring EA blueprints to life must work closely together, so that the architecture looks—and operates—as envisioned. So says Brand Niemann,

long-time enterprise architect at the Environmental Protection Agency

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Step Three: Consult with SecurityWhere things can least afford to fall down, they often do: One example: About 40 percent of virtualization deployment projects were undertaken without involving the information security team in the initial architecture and planning stages.

— Survey data from Gartner conferences in late 2009

?Enterprise architects must address security and access issues with security and compliance officers, such as:● How might the deployment of new technologies potentially introduce vulnerabilities and compromise workloads?● When does the collection of data become classified?● Who has or controls access to the data?● Where does the data reside?● What compliance regulations must your organization comply with?● What privacy requirements must you abide by?

%Blueprints also need to consider processes for reporting breaches and their impact. In a 2010, survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, CIO Magazine and CSO Magazine:20% of respondents reported financial losses15% reported theft of intellectual property 14% reported compromises to brands or reputations

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Step Four: Put Results Before Theory

How? Don’t get caught up in adherence to specific frameworks; put more focus on final objectives.

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Do it for IT leaders:“CIOs don’t even want to hear the words enterprise architecture. Stop talking about models. Focus on results” Brand Niemann

Veteran enterprise architect at the Environmental Protection Agency

?Do it for business leaders:”The balance between tactical and strategic is a key factor in how the larger organization views enterprise architecture’s relevance as well as the support it provides to enterprise architecture.” Alex Cullen

Vice-President, Research Director at Forrester Research (writing in his Forrester blog For Enterprise Architecture Professionals)

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Step Five: Don’t Just Model–Transform! Transformation must be a core competency for all those working within IT and enterprise architecture. Luckily, organizations are getting it!

?What are the foundations of transformation? To summarize the thoughts of some enterprise architecture practitioners: Transformation requires enabling flexibility through frameworks that support ongoing reconfiguration not just in response to—but in anticipation of—business needs.

%How important is the process of accelerating the pace of IT and business transformation activities to your organization?

Source: 2008 Architecture and Governance Magazine Reader Survey

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Step Six: Future-Proof Enterprise Architecture

:Do it for business leaders:Innovation zones, as defined by Forrester: Boundaries, functions, resources, and structures in an enterprise application architecture that insulate highly protected resources from minimally vetted or unvetted tools and technologies and that provide an environment for rapid innovation and advancement of business capabilities.

Forrester Research offers that advice to account for new and future technologies and work processes– texting, tweeting, social networking, and cloud computing–so that blueprints aren’t static but organic and living models.

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Step Seven: Rethink FundingWhere does funding for your enterprise architecture practice come from?Is it project based? Funded as part of the operations budget? Case by case? A mix?

?Consider all the pros and cons and ask yourself:How can you strengthen the case that makes the most sense for your mission goals?

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!Project FundedPro: Easier to justify team size if funding is tied to project investments.Con: Investment funding levels are too variable.Operations FundedPro: Becomes part of core strategic budget.Con: Can make enterprise architecture look like overhead.

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A Successful Enterprise Architecture practice is a Transformed Practice!:Think Coordination:

Align with business, IT and security pros.

?Think About Tomorrow: What will be the business’ needs?What new technologies will emerge?Where will the money come from?

&Think Results: And talk results.