...to a quick-to-value EA practice.
This past week I attended a local PMI dinner meeting where a friend of mine who was speaking on the evolution of Project Management, Business Architecture, and Service Management in the IT Organization. Listening to his presentation which was very well articulated, seemed to be amazingly aligned to an internal project over the past couple of weeks.
The internal project is to develop a new strategic vision of what the end result of the enterprise architecture process and outputs might look like within an organization. In doing so, the process has been to consider what other frameworks and body of knowledge(BOK) might add to the process and artifacts, which include frameworks like TOGAF (incl SAP EAF), Zachman, PEAF, ITIL and body of knowledge like PMBOK, BABOK, and EABOK. Being open minded and embracing different EA Frameworks, standards, and certifications can produce a quick-to-value EA practice based on a path of least resistance. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_of_least_resistance)
For instance, consider the TOGAF Framework phases A (Architecture Vision) and B (Business Architecture). These could easily embrace the BABOK approaches and outputs from business strategy and architecture reports, market studies, organizational structures, goals, functions, product lines, feasibility studies, impact and risk analysis, business cases, and project scope just to name a few. Many Business Analysts, are now seeking certification as Business Analysts from organizations such as the International Institute of Business Analysis.
Another example are the TOGAF phases B (Business Architecture), E (Opportunities and solutions), F (Migration Planning), G (Implementation Governance) which might embrace the PMBOK since many of these include developing business strategies, cases, project scope, implementation/migration strategies and schedules, as well as implementation schedules. Now in many cases Project Managers might end up being the business analysts/architects.
Finally TOGAF phases A-G could include the ITIL service management framework which many people are seeking certification in and is a very hot skill and practice. Understanding the importance of business processes and how they might impact business results, or how technology might impact business processes and results is all contained within service management. How information, applications, and technology solution options are architected also may impact the organizations service management and applicable business cases. Including these as part of an organizations delivery teams is key to maximizing and organizations return while minimizing risk in business process services.
There are many options to introducing EA to your organization. It might be starting to understand what skills your organization already has, embrace and integrate into those skills and resources. Imagine using certified business analysts or supporting another manager in certifying his business analysts, consider the same for project managers and service management professionals. By embracing an EA framework(s) and understanding your organizations current state might result in an easier method to get a high value added EA practice up and going.
