Navigate Atlas to support Portfolio
The Navigate Atlas to support Portfolio extends Navigate to directly support the Enterprise Architecture Use case of Portfolio. Architecture to support portfolio is the most common use case in digital transformation.
The future action-orientation of a portfolio owner requires focus on enabling change. Portfolio owners need enterprise architects to deliver ahead of decision. They must nimbly drive their portfolio to achieve the outcomes their portfolio is accountable for.
The EA use case identifies architecture work should help portfolio owners:
- Select projects that should be in their portfolio
- Prioritize and sequence projects
- Align project execution approaches
- Find synergy and dependency between projects in a portfolio
- Direct and control project execution to reach transition states
- Manage portfolio risk
Enterprise Architecture to support Portfolio
Supports cross-functional, multi-phase, and multi-project change initiatives
Will typically cover a single portfolio.
Enterprise Architecture is used to identify projects in the portfolio. Set a project's terms of reference. The portfolio owner wants to align project approaches, identify synergies, and govern the execution of projects.
The Navigate Atlas supporting Portfolio aims at one of the natural sweet spots for an EA Team. It helps take a target state and breaking it down so individual projects have terms of reference and clarity of their value delivery.
The critical deliverable is an architecture roadmap. The roadmap is part of portfolio planning and the budget cycle.
The roadmap also supports enterprise agility by helping a portfolio owner know when they can stop and change direction without sacrificing value delivery.
Your approach to implementation does not matter - waterfall or agile. The project, or product, is delivering something expected for your organization. Without the expectation, it would not have been funded. Our Atlas to support Portfolio directly supports Agile development and other delivery vehicles.
In fact, a key deliverable is what approach a change should take.
Navigate Atlas to support Portfolio Tools
The design of Navigate leverages industry standard analytic techniques. As enterprise architect's our value is supporting an actionable approach. We always leverage an existing approach instead of wasting time developing an elegant technique.
Scenario Analysis
Scenario Analysis develops plausible futures. We use scenario analysis in Portfolio looking forwards and forwards and backwards. We look backwards from a preferred plausible future to understand what it takes to get there. Looking forwards we examine the portfolio target in the context of a larger future. We do this to see how well a candidate fits.
Conexiam Navigate
We design Conexiam Navigate to address the problem of getting to done.
Small information demands and crisp focus on expected value. Do not to gather all the information that might be.
Specialized Atlases extended Navigate seamlessly.
Portfolio Architecture Work Products
- Architecture Roadmap
Key Deliverable - Decision Document
Architecture Vision
Key input deliverable before budget planning - Option Document
- Portfolio Viewpoints
Key input deliverable before budget planning - Value Assessment/Recovery Plan
Key deliverable before governance review and program budgeting
Enterprise Architecture Landscape (Portfolio)
| Will cover single subjects (the Portfolio) | Typically, not very detailed. May contain discrete constraints that are very detailed when the value is dependent upon tight control. | Typically, valid for 2 to 5-year period when Target. Current Architecture to Support Portfolio should be considered past its best-before date. A Portfolio without a view to the future is pointless. | Typically, the need to update and keeping current this architecture is highly variable. |
Using Navigate Atlas for Portfolio Includes
Align concepts instead of simplistic label matching
The best reference architectures and analytic techniques provide confidence you are working on the important parts of the problem
Pragmatic alignment of concepts to support Digital Transformation
Crisp guidance on applying specialist tools and techniques
Navigate atlas to support portfolio is used in the Divisional or Business Unit change version of our custom business architecture training.
Standard Portfolio Enterprise Architecture Stakeholders
- Senior Leaders are those with responsibility for management and oversight
This responsibility includes approving and realigning strategic initiatives, tracking a portfolio of projects, ensuring transformative benefits are realized, and meeting operational business goals. - Program/Portfolio Managers are those with responsibility for management and oversight of strategic initiatives
This responsibility includes approving and realigning projects, tracking project progress, and ensuring project benefits are realized. - Business Requirements Owners are those responsible for identifying and expressing business requirements
Typically, these Stakeholders are responsible for some aspect of business operation.
- Implementers are those responsible for developing, integrating, and deploying the solution
- Risk Owners are those interested in risk
- Business Partners are those who are engaged to provide services sustaining a customer value proposition
Note: The architecture may not be provided to business partners but must be evaluated from their perspective. - Customers are those who consume products and services
Note: The architecture may not be provided to members, but must be evaluated from their perspective.
Standard Portfolio Enterprise Architecture Concerns
- Agility: What is the ability of the architecture to adapt to future unanticipated change?
- Efficiency: How does the architecture contribute to efficiency of operations?
- Change Impact: What is the change impact of the architecture?
- Change Cost: What is the total cost of change to implement and sustain the architecture?
- Value
- Alignment: Where does the architecture contribute to strategic priorities? What is the contribution?
- Value Proposition: How does the architecture address a value proposition? Does the architecture create new value propositions? Does the architecture depend on a value proposition?
- Differentiation: How does the architecture address enable differentiation?
- Customer Intimacy: Does the architecture enable delivering products and services the customers want? What is the confidence that the new product or service will be liked by them?
- ROI: What is the financial Return on Investment of the target architecture.
- Risk (Uncertainty)
- Risk to Asset: What risks to existing assets does the architecture create? What existing risks to assets are addressed?
- Risk to Benefit: What is the uncertainty of delivering or harvesting the expected benefits?
- Confidence: What provides confidence in the benefit, change costs, and uncertainty of the architecture?
- Feasibility: What is the probability the architecture will be realized and sustained?
- Security: Will the architecture consistently address the risks and opportunities embedded in operations?
- Specification: What needs to be built to realize the architecture?
- Continuous Operations
- Dependability: How will the architecture consistently deliver value and operate safely?
- Resilience: What is the architectures capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties? Where does the architecture have lower resilience?
- Business Continuity: Does the architecture provide the appropriate level of continuity? Where are there limits in business continuity?
- Scalability: Can the architecture handle the range of demands? What is the architecture's growth or expansion restrictions?
- Self-Healing: What is the capacity of the architecture to return to full operation after an incident without external intervention?
- Ecosystem
- Compliance (Regulatory / Contract): How does the architecture address compliance. Does the architecture simplify compliance management? Where does the architecture enforce compliance?
- Competitive Landscape: How does the architecture address threats and opportunities in the competitive landscape? How does the architecture create new opportunities in the competitive landscape?
- Sustainability
- Social Responsibility: How does the architecture address social responsibility goals & requirements?
- Environment: How does the architecture address environmental goals & requirements?
Sample Viewpoints from Portfolio Viewpoint Library
| Concern | Stakeholder | Information Required | View Construction |
| Feasibility what is the probability the architecture will be realized and sustained? |
Senior Leader | Implementation Uncertainty
Critical Capability Maturity
|
Heatmap works well to identify where capability maturity creates uncertainty
Dependency Diagram works well to identify where activity with higher uncertainty directly impacts delivery and harvesting benefit |
| Risk to Benefit | Portfolio Owner | Architecture Benefits
Capability Maturity
|
Dependency Diagram works well to identify where capability & activity with higher uncertainty directly impacts delivery and harvesting benefit |
We would love to hear from you
sales@conexiam.com
Are you looking for help on a transformation project?
We will undertake architecture-driven change projects.
We'll either extend the skill and experience of your team or take the entire project.
Guide effective change
Do you want to develop your EA team?
We develop successful Enterprise Architecture Teams
We follow a deliberate process. We will improve individual skills, your method, your engagement with stakeholders and help you guide effective change.
Design your EA Team to succeed.
For self-help have a look at the Practitioners' Guide and focus on the sections developing architecture to support Portfolio.
What happens next
We will add you to our mailing list and send notes and additional materials to help you with your Digital Transformation and becoming a better Enterprise Architect.
