the process of translating business strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution. The scope of the enterprise architecture includes the people, processes, information and technology, and their relationships to one another and to the external environment. Enterprise architects compose holistic solutions that address the business challenges of the enterprise and support the governance needed to implement them.¹

We could argue whether EA is a process or whether it is something else, but whatever the definition, Gartner gets it right in asserting that enterprise architecture

• composes holistic solutions to address business challenges,
• includes people, process, information and technology within its scope, and
• supports the governance needed to implement solutions.

In describing its enterprise architecture, which is based on the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF), the US National Institutes of Health says that

[Enterprise architecture] illustrates the organization’s core mission, each component critical to performing that mission, and how each of these components is interrelated. These components include:

Guiding principles, organization structure, business processes, and people don’t sound very technical. That’s because enterprise architecture is about more than technology. It is about the entire organization (or enterprise) and identifying all of the bits and pieces that make the organization work.²

• Guiding principles
• Organization structure
• Business processes
• People or stakeholders
• Applications, data, and infrastructure
• Technologies upon which networks, applications and systems are built

While there are some important differences between these two definitions, both of them highlight the value of EA as providing structure across people, process, information, and technology so that they operate together to deliver business value. Perhaps it is because most architects grew up in IT, but most EA focuses on software, hardware and infrastructure so much that it is little more high-level systems design and business value gets lost.

The results are easy to see in many organizations: Business stakeholders find IT irrelevant if not incomprehensible, and they disengage from architecture and implementation activities. This disengagement contributes to “solutions” that just get in the way, and the increased frustration leads the business to circumvent what governance may be in place and pursue non-standard point solutions.

At the same time, IT leaders find themselves supporting an unnecessarily complex integration environment and applications that are used in ways that they were not intended. The resulting pressures on operating costs put them on the defensive, facing increased scrutiny, and they make it harder to come to the table as trusted executive partners in driving business value.

Are these some of the issues you face in your organizations? How could effective enterprise architecture help? The next posts will discuss things that business and IT leadership can do to make enterprise architecture a vehicle for moving beyond frustration and cost focus, enabling them to drive greater value to the organization.

1. Gartner “G00141795: Gartner Defines the Term “Enterprise Architecture”, Anne Lapkin, July 2006, italics added.
2. http://enterprisearchitecture.nih.gov/About/What/, italics added.

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This vision of technology requires executive IT leaders who are trusted partners in the enterprise.  Because technology is so pervasive, Broadbent and Kitzis argue that IT leaders are in a unique position to lead out in identifying issues, creating opportunities, and driving solutions for business growth.  In order do this, they must have a deep understanding of business objectives, strategies, and processes as well as knowledge of the opportunities and constraints facing the enterprise across all functions.  They need a vision of how technology can drive business value, magnifying those opportunities and strategies.  And the executive IT leader needs the ability to engage their executive colleagues in ways that are not just relevant to them, but that excite and empower.

The New CIO Leader is addressed primarily top IT leaders within the organization.  However, the insights and exhortations are at least as important for directors and managers – those who are on the ground delivering IT capabilities.  Upcoming posts will explore these ideas in more depth with a focus on how they can be applied at the ground level.  I look forward to to comments and insights from your experience.  What are the challenges your organizations are facing and how are you overcoming them.  More importantly, I hope these discussions will help you to consider the roles of technical managers and executive IT leaders.  Which are you?  Which are you helping your clients to become?

1. The New CIO Leader: Setting the Agenda and Delivering Results

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• planning delivery activities, estimating cost, and delivering to plan
• driving engagement and commitment with cross-functional business and technology stakeholders
• defining the end-to-end capability and solution architecture
• leading requirements gathering and application design efforts
• developing decision-focused analytic methods and metrics and integrating business intelligence into operational capabilities
• using proven methodologies to manage the end-to-end implementation and production lifecycle for enterprise CRM, marketing and business intelligence capabilities
• providing direct leadership and accountability for both on-shore and off-shore implementation teams

These solutions have been based on Siebel Sales and Marketing, Siebel Analytics / Oracle BI EE (OBIEE), Oracle Real-Time Decisions (RTD) and Informatica. I also have experience with KXEN, Microstrategy, Oracle OLAP, and custom-coded solutions.

My resume describes some of the ways I have helped my clients address their CRM and business intelligence challenges: Resume – Ryan Reid.pdf.  I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the ways my expertise and experience could be of value to you and your organization.

Phone: 312.880.REID (7343) | Email:

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