Identifying the EA Team's Purpose

We use a frightfully simple technique to determine an organization’s preferred purpose - we ask what they want help with.

We have sat down with senior executives, showed them the Purpose Capabilities picture in figure 5 and said “we can structure a good architecture team to help in these places. What would be most useful to you?”

We listen to the challenge:

• “Our solutions don’t deliver.”
• “We can’t stick with the decision.”
• “We are constantly changing our priorities.”

Then diagnose the problem. Walk back in time to the first broken decision and plan to support the next decision in the business cycle. For example, architecture to support portfolio is tightly tied to the budget cycle. For an organization with annual budgets, this will mean that the architecture work product to support budget decisions must be available to decision-makers at the start of their budget planning cycle.

Fall-Back EA Team Purpose

In the absence of any proper diagnostics we strongly advise EA Leaders to focus on architecture to support Portfolio and architecture to support Solution Delivery. A shockingly high number of change initiatives cannot deliver meaningful benefits because the organization did not understand all the steps necessary to realize a benefit.

Enterprise Architecture Capability Reference Model

We built the EA Capability Atlas around a comprehensive Enterprise Architecture Capability Reference Model.

We divided the Reference model into General Business Capabilities, Purpose Capabilities and Foundational Capabilities.

General Business capabilities are not unique to the EA Team. They include ability to perform general business functions required for the success of an EA Team.

Purpose Capabilities are the core of the model. They address the ability to create and consume architecture that is valued by the Enterprise. The Purpose Capabilities specify the output that is produced and do not specify how the work is performed.

Foundation Capabilities address the ability to perform standard activity necessary to create and consume architecture. For example, we would include EA techniques, like Business Architecture, or Infrastructure Architecture in any EA Team purpose.

Capability-Based Planning

The actionable core the Navigate Enterprise Architecture Capability Atlas is building a Capability-Based Roadmap to develop the EA Team.

We score the capabilities.A set of three or four scores allows an enterprise architect to speak with their stakeholders about value, cost, and trade-off.

Trade-off typically involves attributes that have a negative influence on each other. The most straightforward example is the tension between the efficiency of a robotic assembly line with the agility of craft manufacturing.

The Navigate Architecture Scoring Atlas identifies a broad set of attributes. Good business architects will identify the most useful 3 or 4 attributes:

• Performance State
  How complete to best-imagined capability is desired
• Efficiency
  How much output we get for a unit of input
• Fitness
  How well the capability aligns with expectations
• Automation / Repeatability
  The level of automation (where systems do the work) or repeatability (where the work is done production-line style)
• Agility
  The level of unexpected change the capability must be able to adapt to
• Maturity
  Strict CMMI Maturity assessment—the ability to manage and control the capability
• Operating Model
  Is the Capability Unified, Replicated, Coordinated or Diversified
• Performer
  Who delivers the capability—internal, division, partner, vendor

Each of these attributes has a scale. The simple measure of Performance State includes: Examining, Emerging & Experiencing.

• Examining identifies that the EA team has a limited ability to deliver to expectation. Individual delivery is possible, but the organization cannot expect consistent delivery.
• Emerging identifies that EA team's ability to deliver to expectation is coming into practice. Individual delivery is probable, but the organization cannot expect consistent high-functioning delivery.
• Experiencing identifies that EA team can deliver consistently to expectation.