Practicing Enterprise Architecture: The Essential EA Toolkit Part 4 - An Enterprise Roadmap. This is the fourth and final part of my “The Essential EA Toolkit” series covering some recommended tools for Enterprise Architecture Teams. By "tools" I mean a few well-executed deliverables or processes that contribute enormous value to the enterprise. These are not technologies; they can be developed using typical office productivity technology and perhaps a collaboration application such as SharePoint. Before I start, here are links to the first three: In conclusion, the final tool is the Enterprise Roadmap... An Enterprise Roadmap is the Linchpin for Transformation The economic collapses of the 2000’s left a profound effect on businesses that includes a revaluation of how resources are spent on technology.
Achieving a transformed ‘future state’ requires a tool to guide and govern day-to-day resource investment decisions - the Enterprise Roadmap. Good Roadmaps Have four Common elements Besides a time-phased plan of action, good roadmaps have four other common elements: Is the concept of a “roadmap” working against Enterprise Architecture? - Inside Architecture.
Isaac Asimov once said, “It's not so much what you have to learn if you accept weird theories, it's what you have to unlearn.” When we first teach business stakeholders about Enterprise Architecture, we have to help them to unlearn some bad habits. We have to help business people to unlearn their reliance on hierarchy and to begin to trust real data, analysis, and measurement to affect change in their own companies. We have to replace old and worn out concepts, ones that led to early success but will not lead to ultimate success, with new ideas. We have to replace bad practices with good ones. So why do we replace “management by gut feel” with a flawed and incomplete metaphor: the concept of a roadmap? The roadmap is one of the very first things that most Enterprise Architects ever produce that the business will actually see as valuable.
There is no debate that the EA roadmap, properly executed, is valuable. How is the first image is even remotely similar to the second? So what, you say! EA Roadmap Example | Enterprise Architecture - CIO-Index. EA Roadmap - Enterprise Architecture. An Enterprise Architecture Roadmap is a ordered sequence of Enterprise Architecture initiatives that are required in order to make the transition from the current enterprise Architecture baseline to the future target Enterprise Architecture vision. The initiatives are based on the planned architecture requirements such as Topics and Gaps to be analysed and architecture decisions and recommendations that will be required.
Enterprise Architecture initiatives can include any activities such as: Producing consultation documents and white papersConducting a feasibility studySponsoring a new delivery project for cross programme/project issuesTraining and education in new techniques such as the Service Oriented Architecture approach The Enterprise Architecture Roadmap should also show the alignment of the proposed Enterprise Architecture initiatives with the Business Initiatives and activities identified in the Target Operating Model, Business Strategy and Business Principles documents etc.
How to build a Roadmap | Applied Enterprise Architecture. How many of us in the profession can truly say we have been taught to develop, refine, and deliver a professional roadmap based on a sound method with consistent repeatable results? Have been at this crazy business for years, and still astonished at the wide variety of quality in the results I have experienced over the years – and it’s not getting any better.
Not sure I can identify why this is so, maybe it’s the consolidation and changes in the traditional consulting business (big eight to what? Two, maybe) or the depreciation of the craft itself among our peers. And then again, maybe sound planning went out of style and I didn’t get the memo. I’m no genius, just believe I have been blessed to come into the industry at a time when the large management consulting firms actually invested in intellectual property and shared this with the “new hires” and up-and-coming staff like me.
What I’m going to share works well across most transformation programs. The Overall Pattern Click to enlarge.