The Basics of Enterprise Architecture Governance
What is Architecture Governance?
- What is Enterprise Architecture Governance?
- Basics of Architecture Governance: Direction, Decision, Execution, and Control
- What is the Purpose of Enterprise Architecture Governance?
Architecture Governance Objectives
Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework
- Architecture Governance Roles
- Enterprise Architecture Governance Processes
- TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Governance Tools
Enterprise Architecture Governance Best Practices
Benefits of Enterprise Architecture Governance
Levels of Corporate Governance
Conclusion to the Basics of Enterprise Architecture Governance
This article explains the basics of architecture governance. Read these articles to see how governance is enabled: Architecture governance checklists, what is an Architecture Review Board, the goals of a modern dynamic architecture review board, how to stand-up an ARB, or the key architecture governance processes - target architecture approval and implementation governance.
What Is Architecture Governance?
We will start with what governance is. Governance is how an organization delivers direction and exercises control. Direction comes from above.
Think about the chain of direction
Shareholders direct the board.
The board directs the executive.
The executive directs the management.
Direction is providing performance expectations, constraints, and risk appetite.
Exercising control is about ensuring that the directions are followed.
The diagrams below show how direction is translated into action, and how direction cascades through an organization.
On the left, how direction is translated into action.
Your boss provides you with a performance expectation, constraints, and a risk appetite. Then you get on with your job.
You get told to increase revenue using new products sold to existing customers, and sets a firm revenue target and budget for new product development.
You were provided:
- Direction: increase revenue
- Constraint: new product & existing customer
- Risk Appetite: low (firm budgets)
First, you decide what the products are and how you will take them to your existing customers. Then you execute your plan.
Internal product development processes, marketing and sales reports will provide controls. Is your product development on budget? Are you raising revenue? Is revenue coming from new products? Are you marketing the new products?
On the right, cascading direction.
It does not take much imagination to build a more complicated chain
Top direction is to grow revenue. Decision: new products.
Next level receives grow revenue with new products. They decide to sell to existing customers.
Next level receives grow revenue with new product sold to existing customers.
These two simple graphics highlight the key parts of effective governance.
Basics of Architecture Governance: Direction, Decision, Execution, and Control
Direction should be composed of three things:
- Performance Expectation
- Constraint
- Risk Appetite
Direction can be delivered by goals, objectives, or strategies. Essentially, anything that talks to an outcome and constraints.
Decision is where you determine how to deliver on the performance expectation.
Selection is confined by the complete set of applicable performance expectations and constraints.
Execution is where the path forward is implemented. The implementation can be direct, or become a further direction downward. All value is realized following execution.
Controls are the procedures, checks, balances, and reviews leaders use to make sure their Directions are followed.
Architecture Governance Objectives
What is Enterprise Architecture Governance?
Architecture governance is how an organization delivers direction to enterprise architects, and how an organization uses enterprise architecture to provide direction to implementers. Last, how an organization exercises control over this chain of direction.
There are two critical architecture governance processes:
- Process to Approve Target Architecture
- Implementation Governance Process
The TOGAF Architecture Development Method transitions from the governance process to approve target architecture between Phase E and Phase F. The key output of Phase E - Opportunities and Solutions is an architecture roadmap.
Phase F - Implementation Planning delivers an Implementation Plan and Architecture Contract. Both used in the implementaion governance process.
The diagram to the right captures this transition. It is not a clean line. The variables of architecture use case and the scope of an architecture project require a transition.
Architecture governance is the method of directing enterprise architects, and how the enterprise architecture is used to provide direction to implementers.
Both architecture governance methods share a chain of controls.
The Purpose of Enterprise Architecture Governance
At its simplest, the purpose of enterprise architecture governance is accountability. Enabled by the controls used by the director to hold everyone accountable.
We know that the purpose of enterprise architecture is effective change. Enterprise architecture governance is the backbone that ensures the changes match the company's goals.
Going Further into Enterprise Architecture Governance
Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework
An enterprise architecture governance framework helps you implement and improve your governance capability.
The architecture governance framework defines roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes.
Key components of an Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework include:
- Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for individuals or teams involved in various aspects of enterprise architecture, such as stakeholders, architects, subject-matter experts and implementers.
- Decision-Making Processes: Clearly outlined processes for making decisions related to the enterprise architecture. This includes how architectural decisions are reviewed, approved, and communicated throughout the organization.
- Compliance and Auditing: Mechanisms for ensuring that implementation projects are in line with the target architecture. Regular audits and compliance checks help maintain the integrity of the implemented changes.
- Communication and Reporting: Communication channels and reporting structures that allow stakeholders to be informed about the status of the enterprise architecture initiatives, decisions, and changes.
- Monitoring and Measurement: Metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track the effectiveness and impact of the enterprise architecture on the organization's goals.
- Education and Training: Providing education and training to stakeholders involved in enterprise architecture to ensure a common understanding of the framework, standards, and best practices.
Your organization and EA use case will determine how you implement enterprise architecture governance. This framework helps decision-making, teamwork, and using enterprise architecture for effective change.
Enterprise Architecture Governance Roles
The Enterprise Architecture Governance Guide identifies six key roles.
- Stakeholder – owner of the architecture
Provides priority, preference, and direction.
All decision rights regarding the target architecture, and any relief from and enforcement of the target, are vested in the Stakeholders. - Stakeholder Agent – representative of the Stakeholder
- Subject Matter Expert – possesses specialized knowledge about some aspect of the Enterprise or the environment in which it operates
Provides knowledge, advice, and validation of interpretation. - Implementer – responsible for performing all change activity
The scope of change is not relevant. Transformative capital projects and incremental operational changes are changes performed by an Implementer.
All decision rights about proposed implementation choices, such as design, product selection, and change sequence, are vested with the Implementer - Architect (Practitioner) – developer of the target architecture
Provides recommendations when non-compliance with the target is determined. - Auditor – performs systematic reviews of both the target and implementation
Audits should be performed at multiple stages to capture errors before the cost of correction exceeds potential value realization.
Auditing can be performed within a formal structure such as an architecture governing board or by a peer reviewer.
Enterprise Architecture Governance Processes
There are two core fundamental processes:
- Process to Approve Target Architecture
- Implementation Governance Process
Process to Approve Target Architecture
Most enterprise architecture development happens inside the decision circle.
Given a problem and set of directions the enterprise architect's develop the target architecture. The governance process is the process to approve the target. This is where our Architecture Review Board holds the enterprise architects to account. The target architecture governance checklist simplifies the needed controls.
Once the stakeholders have approved the target, we move to the second key governance process—Implementation Governance.
Implementation Governance Process
Like the first core process this process is is about the controls to ensure directions were followed. In this case, the directions embedded in the target architecture.
The implementation governance checklist has one very important question: Did those performing the change reasonably follow the direction in target architecture?
- Did they fill the gap?
- Did they follow the implementation strategy?
- Did they deliver the expected benefit?
- Did they follow the constraints? The architecture specifications that limited their choices.
TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Governance Tools
In the TOGAF Framework there are several architecture governance tools.
Direction: Performance Expectation & Constraint
- Statement of Architecture Work
- Gap
- Work Package
- Architecture View
- Architecture Roadmap
- Implementation Strategy
- Architecture Contract
- Implementaion and Migration Plan
Control
- Compliance Assessment
Other
- Implementation Governance Model
Enterprise Architecture Governance Best Practices
Benefit of Enterprise Architecture Governance
With an enterprise architecture governance model, any organization can avoid costly mistakes and achieve the following benefits:
- Clearer roles and responsibilities with management oversight
- Fast decision-making to defeat challenges through more inclusive transparency and accountability
- Architectural consistency with a streamlined compliance
- Pragmatic methods resulting in essential and useful enterprise architecture management
- Increased business value
- Increased strategic alignment
- Knowing strengths and weaknesses and discover actual best practices
Levels of Governance Inside the Enterprise
Usually, architecture governance does not work on its own. Architecture governance exists inside a hierarchy of governance structures. These structures can act as distinct domains with their own set of processes and disciplines.
- Corporate governance
- Architecture governance
- IT governance
Each of the governance domains can exist at various geographic levels - global, regional, and local - inside the overall enterprise.
Go Further with Best Practice Enterprise Architecture Process and Method
Best practice enterprise architecture from Conexiam Navigate
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Enterprise Architecture Governance Principles
The following are the central guiding principles for establishing successful enterprise architecture governance:
- Commitment: All participants commit to adhering to established procedures, policies, processes, and authoritative directives.
- Transparency: Decisions and actions are open to scrutiny by authorized entities, including organizational stakeholders and implementation partners.
- Liberation: Minimize conflicts of interest by ensuring clear separation between decision-making processes and involved mechanisms.
- Accountability: Every internal group, such as governance boards responsible for actions and decisions, is answerable for their undertaken responsibilities.
- Responsibility: Change leaders bear the obligation to be accountable and responsible toward the organization and its stakeholders.
- Fairness: All decisions, processes, and implementations are governed by principles of impartiality, disallowing any unjust preferential treatment to any entity.
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Conclusion of The Basics of Enterprise Architecture Governance
Governance is, not management
In the dynamic modern business landscape, effective enterprise architecture governance is pivotal for change management and achieving organizational objectives. Through structured principles and frameworks, enterprise architecture governance orchestrates complex processes, fostering collaboration, accountability, and transparency.
Enterprise architecture governance embodies organizational direction and control, guiding decision-making, transformation, and conflict prevention. By adhering to commitments, embracing transparency, and upholding accountability, stakeholders unite to pursue a shared vision.
At its core, the purpose of enterprise architecture governance is to bridge the gap between aspiration and implementation. This framework creates an environment where change is not just managed, but harnessed to fuel innovation, growth, and value creation. It evolves alongside technology and business conditions, providing a resilient structure that adapts and thrives in the ever-changing landscape of the modern business world.
Embracing enterprise architecture governance empowers organizations to navigate complexity confidently. Fairness, liberation, and responsibility illuminate the path to success, ensuring equitable, transparent, and accountable decisions. This commitment propels sustainable growth, underpinned by a governance framework of integrity and strategic alignment.
In conclusion, enterprise architecture governance isn't just technical—it's a strategic necessity shaping organizational destiny. Amid technology's evolution, robust governance ensures true direction, guiding towards a future of innovation, transformation, and prosperity.
