Doing Enterprise Architecture- Benefits and Realizing Value

1. Key Messages

-EA leads to organisational benefits through three key stages

-insights and dialogue from EA planning

-EA-guided IT project delivery

-EA-guided IT platform

-It is essential to balance the pursuit of long-term outcomes(the big wins related to the IT platforms) and achievement of short-term outcomes (the quick wins related to project execution)

-Ultimately, EA can help improve return on IT investment and organisational agility

-Greatest potential for realising EA value-leading complex IT-enabled organisational change (ERP?)

15:11

2. The Value of EA

-EA leads to organisational benefits through three key stages

-insights and dialogue from EA planning

-EA-guided IT project delivery

-EA-guided IT platform

-Ultimately, EA can help improve return on IT investment and organisational agility

3. Dimensions of Value

-Financial

-Management

-Strategic Alignment

-Outcomes

-‘Soft‘ Benefit

-Technical

Security, Upgrades

4. Direct EA Outcome

Organisational Alignment

Increased dialogue and common understanding of the organisation‘s strategic goal between its divisions, driving higher willingness to collaborate.

Information Availability

Increased high-quality information about the organisation‘s processes and IT systems available to organisational decision-makers

These two outcomes are undoubtedly useful,but need to drive more tangible value for the EA investment to be justified.

5. EA-Guided Projects

Project portfolio Optimisation

Allocation of work across projects and project sequencing is improved through a better understanding of task/resource inter-dependencies.

Project Coordination

Sequencing and timing of activities within a project is improved through a better understanding of the project‘s context and dependencies.

Project Solution Selection

Predefined architectural guidelines help improve solution selection decisions and reduce the duration of the project initiation phase.

These three outcomes drive EA ‘quick wins‘-reduction in the project and/or program cost, effort, time, and/or risk.

6. EA-Guided IT Platform

Resource Portfolio Optimisation

Increased leveraging of the exsiting resources and better-targeted investments (channeled towards performance gaps, not towards duplicating existing resources).

Resource Complementarity

Resources that synergistically support the pursuit of strategic goals (improved integration and effective sharing of resources across intra-organisational boundaries)

There are the ‘big wins‘ that are the key source of improved ROI and agility, but getting there is a long and challenging journey.

7. The EA Value Conundrum

-The immediate outcomes from EA planning have very limited tangible and measurable value

-The long-term outcomes from EA carry the highest value potential, but the contribution of EA among many other important factors is difficult to establish and measure.

-The easiest pathway to demonstrating value may hence lie in the project-related outcomes- however, too strong a focus here introduces the risk of EA morphing into solution architecture.

8.Contextual Factors and EA Benefits

-The value of EA activity is particularly strong when managing complex IT-enabled organisational change.

-Complexity provide good opportunities for EA to add value, e.g., managing risk, reducing duplication and cost, investment and project prioritisation, etc.

-In a complex but stable organisation, the potential for EA planning to add value might be there but it is not possible to realise this value unless the organisation is willing and able to invest  in change.

-The rate of organisational change also has implications on the focus of the EA activity. During times of transformational change, the focus of EA is on redefining the IT platform. During ‘business as usual‘, the focus of EA is refining the existing IT platform.

Considering all of the above, should the EA capability be set up as a permanent business function or as a periodic project-based planning activity?

(Depends)

-Another contextual factor that has deep implications on the role and value of EA is the desired level of sharing between the organisation‘s business units. ‘operating model‘

-If all business units operate high autonomously, EA may struggle to add value on the enterprise level.

Operating Model:The desired level of business process integration and business process standardization for delivering goods and services to customers.

Enterprise Architecture:The organizing logic for business process and IT infrastructure capabilities reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model. 

What would be the business rationale and an example of a company in each quadrant?

Operating Models: Diversification, Replication,Coordination and Unification

Diversification: Energy industry:retail,sales

Unification: Siemens

What role, if any, would EA play in a highly diversified company (i.e. bottom-left n this diagram)?

(Depends)

9. Realising the Value of EA

-What are the key benefits of EA?

Strategic Alignment

Understanding

Integration

-What are some of the key challenges in realising and demonstrating value from EA?

-How can the value of EA (both real and perceived) be improved?

Some Thoughts
-Key benefits of EA include ROI on IT investment and improved organisational agility.

-These outcomes are achieved through reduction in duplication, smarter sharing of existing resources, improved information sharing and integration, etc.

-Realising the value potential of EA depends on the EA team as well a the organisational context.

-From its part, the EA team can maximise the likelihood of successful EA service provision by following the principles, many of which revolvearound relevance, pragmatism, and flexibility.

-The improvement of EA blue perception is often dependent on demonstrating ‘quick wins‘. It is necessary to build positive attitudes and reputation- then continue to deliver to or exceed the set expectations.

-The true ‘big wins‘ of EA are achieved over time through an on-going journey towards an ever-moving target IT platform.

10. Summary

-EA leads to organisational benefits through three key stages:

-insights and dialogue from EA planning

-EA-guided IT project delivery

-EA-guided IT platform

-It is essential to balance the pursuit of long-term outcomes (the big wins related to the IT platform) and achievement of short-term outcomes (the quick wins related to project execution)

-Ultimately, EA can help improve return on IT investment and organisational agility

-Greatest potential for realising EA value-leading complex IT-enabled organisational change