Sunday, September 11, 2016

Understand your Enterprise Context

Among all the enterprise architecture frameworks out there, Gartner has more focus on business. Early in the EA program, Gartner's approach guides the chief architect to work closely with the business to build a common understanding of the enterprise context:

  • Clear articulation and analysis of the enterprise strategy
  • Analysis of the Internal & External environmental trends
  • Change Requirements in Business, Information and Technology

 An anchor model : A high-level view of the future state Of the enterprise
Documenting the enterprise context enables everybody in the organization to share one single vision, on which latter Enterprise Architecture efforts can be based. A focused direction of effort means that all the changes brought by the EA program are of business value. 

In addition to this, building this common understanding of the enterprise context will engage the business leadership and thus obtaining business sponsorship.

Moreover, the enterprise context will be the perfect basis on which enterprise architecture principles can be established. These principles will be used by business IT and EA as a decision making criteria. 

Another interesting thing in Gartner's approach is that it recommends that the enterprise architecture start with the future state before the current state. Gartner considers this as one of the 10 best practices in enterprise architecture. Gartner argues that the analysis of the current state is important only in the context of gap analysis, whereas the goal of the architecture is to facilitate change to reach a desired future state. 

In my point of view, Gartner has the best practice when it comes to building an EA program that is focused on business value. Organizations using other frameworks should consider adopting this practices at an early stage in the EA program to win business support and reap some business value.



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