Jon Doe's EA Launching

John Doe is a sweet fellow who works in a large company in the Middle East. I am not saying that he is nice only because he agreed to share his story in this blog, but because his nice personality played an important role in this week story.

John is an experienced enterprise architect. He was hired by a company, let’s call it ABC, for the purpose of establishing an EA program. Everything looked promising to John, the company seemed mature, and the CEO is directly supporting the program. Full of confidence, John entered his first senior Executive Committee Meeting in ABC. One and half hour later, John‘s confidence started to shake.

The meeting started with a welcome message from the CEO to John. John’s competence and capabilities were praised. The CEO went on talking about the new EA program. He conveyed his ultimate support to John and demanded the same from the rest of the senior executives.  Then, John started presenting enthusiastically his carefully prepared, highly engaging slides. He presented the objectives of the EA program, its business value, typical implementation methodologies, frameworks, list of high level deliverables and etc. John enthusiasm was met with a passive aggressive response. John was really shocked. He was smart enough to realize that this only means one thing; the failure of the program!

The next few weeks john was busy doing one thing, fitting in! It was very clear to him that he is ought to understand the culture before he can move any further in the program. It wasn’t long before john sweet nature managed to gain him friends; this was stage one of his plan.

 Afterwards, John started to engage in one to one discussions with highly influential executives, most of which took place in casual settings. During these meetings, he was using the other party‘s operational context and business domain to build relevance and get him engaged. Days before the EA Charter was presented, all of the influential executives secretly received a draft copy of the charter for their review and input.

The EA launching meeting was superb. The CEO was pleased to have such an interactive session. Both Business & IT supported the EA initiatives and agreed to release all the required resources to the program. John succeeded in launching a program that is owned by the entire enterprise.

What I like about this story, is that it highlights the most critical factor that can threaten the EA program. The people factor. Even the most experienced architects, well-crafted modeling products and strict governance cannot lead to the success of the program if stakeholders buy-in and engagement is not sought.

Thank you for sharing, John Doe!