Towards an Approach to Easy Enterprise Architecture

Although not intended as a formal method the following steps to establishing a first cut enterprise architecture is suggested as a broad approach:

1. Establish Clear Vision and Scope

According to Rico (2006), it is important to know what is to be achieved by the creation of enterprise architect. Enterprise architecture establishment need to be tied to a strategic objective or project. To get things done, and get it done quickly a compelling strategic reason needs to be identified for the enterprise architecture project.

Kotter (1995) suggests as part of his eight step approach that in order to create change, a sense of urgency needs to be established. This is particularly good advice for enterprise architecture development.

Both strategic and operational imperatives like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations, business change, mergers and acquisitions, application renewal, transformation road maps, business- IT alignment, infrastructure renewal, legacy transformation and other reasons (http://www.ea-consulting.com/Reports/Enterprise%20Architecture%20Survey%202005%20IFEAD%20v10.pdf) should be considered. Find out what the important strategic issue for the enterprise architecture project is and focus on it.

2. Decide on”Good Enough” Architecture

Design the architecture for flexibility, most-important pieces, and rapid iteration capability (Schulman, 2003). Focus on small, lean and fast (Rico, 2006). Understand minimum requirements for standards, models and principles (Giachetti, 2009).

3. Investigate Reusable Architecture Assets

Understand what architectural assets exists in the enterprise and based on their suitability, include them in the preparation of a first cut enterprise architecture description (Ambler et al, 2005). Understand the impact and consequences of the reuse of existing architecture assets.

4. Define Project Scope

Decide the breadth of coverage and the level of detail to be defined and use it as a starting point for the project (http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/). Using ”Good Enough” architecture ensure consideration of the combination of time frame, window and level of effort on the enterprise architecture project(Schulman, 2003).

5. Develop First Cut Architecture Description

Launch and manage the enterprise architecture description project, ensuring that project management principles are applied (Rico, 2006).

References

Ambler S.W., Nalbone J., Vizdos M.J. (2005), The Enterprise Unified Process: Extending the Rational Unified Process, Prentice Hall

Giachetti R.E. (2009), Design for the Entire Business, Industrial Engineer, 41(6):39-43

Kotter J.P. (1995), Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail, Harvard Business Review, March-April 1995:59-67

Rico, D.F. (2006), A Framework for Measuring ROI Of Enterprise Architecture, Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, 18(2):i-xii

Schulman J. (2003), Defining ‘Good Enough’ Architecture, Available from http://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgePublic/Journals/Gartner/research/115900/115962/115962.pdf, (Accessed 20 September 2009)

TOGAF 9, Available from http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/, (accessed 20 September 2009)

Trends in Enterprise Architecture 2005, Available from http://www.ea-consulting.com/Reports/Enterprise%20Architecture%20Survey%202005%20IFEAD%20v10.pdf, (accessed 20 September 2009)