Is Enterprise Architecture (EA) Dead in Digital?
Any EA group in an organization starting or going through digital transformation will face this question. I’ve been there, have been challenged directly, and have asked myself this question when leading EA through digital. Having gone through a big wave of the journey I can say without a doubt, EA is not dead in digital and plays a vital role in the transformation. Architecture leaders and practitioners must modernize EA and disrupt themselves, making the necessary changes to operate as an agile, lean, and business outcome focused organization where speed to market, innovation, and business value drive day-to-day activities.
Lessons Learned
I took away many lessons along my journey thus far. Below are some which stood out and were key catalysts for changing how EA was organized and how it operated. Everyone’s journey will be different and I hope these, at a minimum, help to fuel your transformation as you reconfigure, retool, and launch EA into the digital atmosphere.
Lengthy target state development and roadmapping efforts don’t work. A key demand placed on EA is to be agile. Target states, blueprints, and roadmaps matter however they must be lightweight, directional, fluid, and formed quickly to establish and maintain a common vision and approach which enables execution. The focus on speed to market, innovation, and competitive edge force architectures to be highly dynamic and emergent, shifting traditional top-down EA to bottom-up where organic solutions become deliberate over time, refactoring where needed.
Be lean, agile, and focus on business outcomes. The days of unnecessary paperwork, heavy governance checkpoints, and enforcement through checklists are gone. EA must enable speed to market and high business value through deepened engagement models being active side-by-side contributors with product owners and delivery teams leading development of resilient and scalable solutions. Use architecture guidelines as a way to inform and enable delivery teams, achieving consistency over time as opposed to force fitting old solutions for new business challenges. Governance activities should be lean, business value/ROI focused, and merged in with agile delivery methods.
Take risks, fail fast, pivot. Driving innovation, adopting new technologies, and managing test-and-learn efforts require courage to take risks and, more importantly, navigating complexity when things don’t go as planned. New technologies and frameworks will not always work as expected, business demands will change, and customer feedback may require directional shifts. Fail fast and often so strategies and solutions which do not work or no longer meet what’s needed can be quickly revised or replaced.
Conventional EA frameworks must be extended into architecture solutioning, connecting all architecture domains. Architecture activities must deepen past strategic viewpoints into execution in order to connect strategy, execution and governance and have them work in harmony. Leverage deep solutioning to sharpen the focus on security, scalability, and resiliency while developing product designs. Drive out reusable services and frameworks addressing cross-cutting product concerns, speeding time to market and lowering development costs for digital capabilities.
Final Thoughts
EA and its practitioners must be thought leaders, change agents, and innovators in the digital transformation journey. Modernizing the architecture of an organization and going digital is hard work and needs a modern, agile EA practice to lead the way. Shed conventional practices which don’t stand up to today’s demands and be the leaders and innovative thinkers comfortable with taking risks while staying laser-focused on business value. Embrace failures and take the lessons they bring to grow and think in new directions.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
