Delivering Business & Technology Innovation by the use of EA
Business Capability Improvement as one of the Enterprise Architecture Benefits.
Every Organization Has Enterprise Architecture to Control
Enterprise Architecture (EA) means two things. It is both a process (1) and a product (2).
- Enterprise Architecture as a field of work is the art and science of designing and realizing enterprises.
- Enterprise Architecture, as in the architecture of an enterprise, is the total concept of that enterprise, consisting of concepts that provide construction, operation, and decoration to that enterprise.
Every organization has a coherent set of concepts applied to it, like process orientation, service orientation, b2b marketing, and automation. Therefore, every organization has an enterprise architecture. If you look only at the business concepts of the enterprise, you can speak of business architecture. When one only looks at the IT concepts of the enterprise, one can speak of the IT architecture as part of the Enterprise Architecture. In this way, one can recognize many different types of architecture in an enterprise.
Architects use the strategy, needs, and requirements of stakeholders and their own experience to select the right and required concepts (with principles/working mechanisms) and standards for the organization. Next, they get the concepts, principles, and standards approved by CxOs and provide projects with visualizations to guide them in implementing the concepts, principles, and standards.
A misconception of architecture is that EA can be a description only. That is not true. EA is a total concept. That total concept can be designed, visualized, and described. If you do not describe the architecture of a pyramid or an enterprise, these two structures still have an architecture. That architecture will enable or block certain changes and innovations. Therefore, architecture cannot be just a description.
Benefits of Enterprise Architecture using Conceptual Diagrams with Architecture Principles.
A conceptual blueprint as a product or document can be part of the design, visualization, or description of an architecture, but a blueprint is not the architecture itself. Architecture is a total concept applied to a structure. Nothing more and nothing less. Creating a conceptual blueprint as a document or visualization to control architecture is a best practice.
The point is that if you only describe enterprise architecture, you are not working with enterprise architecture or gaining its benefits, as in guiding a project to use principles and standards that eventually will implement the strategy.
To work with enterprise architecture, you need to start a process, assign roles to people, have people educated, create products, approve products, and use products.
What are the 7 Enterprise Architecture Benefits?
Enterprise architecture has many well-known benefits, like providing insights and an overview of structures and dependencies between processes and applications.
In the view of strategy, it pays off to formulate proven EA benefits that directly can be justified financially and strategically. But what are the benefits of Enterprise Architecture?
We have seven proven EA benefits that can be delivered by enterprise architecture using Dragon1 in any organization. These are:
- Creating Insights and Overviews of Relations and Dependencies
- Impact of Change Analysis (What-if Scenarios)
- Standardization and Risk Mitigation
- IT Cost and Complexity Reduction
- Process and Capability Improvement
- Enabling Innovation
- Strategy and Transformation Realization
All these benefits justify investing money into the enterprise architecture initiative in an organization.
1. Creating Insights and Overviews of Relations and Dependencies
EA's most well-known benefit is creating common insights and overviews of relationships and interdependencies. This leads to reducing miscommunication and misunderstandings. And also more confidence in making a decision.
Read more about Creating Insights and Overviews using Dragon1 for EA.
2. Impact of Change Analysis
The second most well-known benefit of EA is visualizing and using the knowledge on the impact of change. With this, you can prevent showstoppers in projects better.
Read more about Impact of Change using Dragon1 for EA.
3. Standardization and Risk Mitigation
You may want to collaborate seamlessly with other organizations or have your business unit collaborate more efficiently. For instance, with one consistent client view.
If you would only have solutions built on open standards, then integrating processes, services, and applications is easy.
Having different solutions for the same problems and having a different version of the same solutions increases costs. Having exotic solutions to a common problem or having no standard solutions to standard problems all increase costs. Especially when knowledge is scarce.
EA is a proven tool or method to standardize IT successfully.
The less diverse an IT landscape is, and the fewer relationships or interfaces there, the less complex the IT landscape is. Lower complexity leads to higher availability, an improved way of working in the IT landscape, and much fewer risks of failure.
Dragon1 as an open EA method supports you in standardizing your IT Landscape.
Read more about Technology Standardization using Dragon1 for EA.
4. IT Cost and Complexity Reduction
In organizations, many things happen where not everyone is constantly busy thinking: how necessary is this what we do concerning the strategy? When working with EA, every project unrelated to or necessary because of strategy gets the advice to be stopped.
Also, every process, service, system, or construction that does not add value to the business model or strategy should be stopped. This reduces complexity significantly and, with that, increases stability and overall quality.
Rationalizing every solution based on benchmarks, standards, experience, and references will reduce costs.
Having more overviews and insights into dependencies and interrelationships ensures you will reduce costs.
Read more about IT Cost reduction using Dragon1 for EA.
5. Process and Capability Improvement
Working with Enterprise Architecture has a history of improving processes. The fundamental lean redesign of chains of activities, complex services, and products requires global and detailed insights and overviews. Architecture visualization can quickly provide information on the impact of change on redesigning a process, service, or product.
When processes are improved, fewer mistakes are made, resources are used more efficiently and effectively, and customers and clients immediately will experience the improvement.
Read more about Business Process Improvement using Dragon1 for EA.
6. Enabling Innovation
Working with Enterprise Architecture leads to increasing the ability to change and transform.
You may want to implement new technologies and concepts like artificial intelligence, block, and IoT to innovate your business model.
Having EA documented and used in projects ensures you know exactly how everything is configured, related, and works in your organization. The impact of change on anything is short.
With that, the constructions or outdated standards and technologies blocking innovation can be removed or phased out step by step. With EA, you become ready for the future.
Dragon1 as EA method supports you in creating the necessary holistic view of the enterprise.
Read more about Innovation Enablement using Dragon1 for EA.
7. Strategy and Transformation Realization
Every organization with a strategy will want to realize it. For that, programs and projects should be put up.
Enterprise Architecture is most helpful for reviewing, feedback, and using the strategy: the strategic priorities and initiatives can be connected to programs and projects that realize them. Architecture can provide integral blueprints and landscapes for the strategically required concepts, principles, standards, and solutions and guide projects with them.
Read more about Strategy Realization using Dragon1 for EA.
Smart Organizations require Working with EA
Today, the customer wants an organization to be smart so they can get the best experience possible. They want an organization to use what it knows about products, processes, technologies, and customer behavior.
Customer Journey Mapping is a new way of creating insights into what a customer wants and how it is provided to the customer.
To deliver what I promised or is necessary, many projects have to collaborate efficiently and continuously transform the organization.
These projects need global and detailed insights and overviews, principles, and standards that guide their execution. That is why every organization that wants to become smart will benefit from working with Enterprise Architecture.
Working with Enterprise Architecture at Maturity Level #1
To realize 1 or 2 benefits out of 5 of working with Enterprise Architecture, it is necessary to scale up to maturity level #1.
Dragon1 defines Maturity Level #1 of working with EA as follows: The architecture team provides services to every project, and every project potentially can use architecture products that are available to them. The most important stakeholders know what EA is, its benefits, and its products; the EA process is rudimentary. The architects can use the Enterprise Architecture Dossier (as a common ground and unique base) to answer any simple question by a stakeholder. Not all views thinkable are present, but the most common ones are.
At the bottom of this page, a configuration is provided for an Enterprise Architecture Dossier at maturity level #1.
Checklist for Maturity Level 1
- Organize architecture roles
- Create architecture plan, quantifying EA benefits, adding EA product roadmap
- Get assignments (requests) from stakeholders (to create certain views of EA products)
- Create enterprise architecture dossier
- Create EA process and EA products together with stakeholders
- Communicate the process and products to stakeholders and projects
- Report on realizing EA Benefits
How to have Stakeholders Benefit from EA
Next to the overall benefits, EA also has role-specific benefits. Some of them are outlined below. Per type of stakeholder, products are mentioned that the stakeholders can use in their work.
Client / Customer
Working with enterprise architecture improves processes that clients and customers rely on.
- Products and Services Roadmap
- Infographics to communicate transparently about processes, products, services, and technologies
Employee
Working with enterprise architecture improves the organization's data quality, enables permanent employee education, and increases employee career options because the organization can better execute its strategy.
- Strategy Roadmap
- Infographics, to communicate transparently about processes, products, services, and technologies and startup discussion on the usage of new concepts
Business Manager
A business manager will have constant insights and an overview of the processes they are responsible for.
If a business manager wants to innovate the part of the business they are responsible for very quickly, architects and the architecture can provide feedback on the impact or resistance in the organization and provide projects with designs and guidelines for realizing that innovation.
- Customer Journey
- Process and Services Landscape
- Business Capabilities Map
IT Manager
IT Managers can be more ambitious if they work with EA. For instance, reducing 30% costs instead of 20% on application licenses and maintenance.
- IT Landscape, with views on costs, integration, and end-of-life assets
Information Manager
Information Managers can be more clear to the business when they get what service
- Information Landscape with views on services
HR Manager
HR Manager can source the organization better with required skills and competencies.
- Human Capital Landscape
- Competence and Skills Heat Map
Project Manager and Project Worker
- Project Landscape Map per project
- Functional and Technical Concept Design Sketch per Project
- Functional and Technical Solution Design Diagram per Project
Logistics Manager
Financial Manager
A financial manager can ensure that investments in innovation align with the strategy and that the usage of resources is more in line with the business case.
- Financial Landscape Map, with a view on justified costs of assets and projects in line with the strategy.
Security Manager
- Security Landscape Map, with the Top 10 Potential Leak Risks
Directors and CxOs
Directors benefit from EA because it helps them to communicate the strategy to everyone and have integral designs for every project to realize the strategy step by step.
- Strategy Map
- Business Model
Quickstart working with EA using a Dossier
It makes sense to organize and control working with the enterprise architecture in any organization. And this can be done at various levels of maturity.
Compliant to Dragon1, at the first level of maturity, the organization recognizes an architecture (more architectures) present in the organization. It pays off by making it tangible and using it to guide change and innovation.
Several people are assigned the role of manager architecture (exactly 1) and architect (at least 1, preferably 3). The first process of working with architecture is established, which tells how to create and use enterprise architecture products. A basic enterprise architecture dossier containing enterprise architecture products is created and maintained. Commonly, the CIO is the owner of the Enterprise Architecture.
1. Maturity Level 1 EA products
One can create many products in an organization for many stakeholders when starting up working with EA. Dragon1 promotes the following basic products to create as part of maturity level 1.
The products are placed in the order they are commonly created.
- EA Assignment or EA Statement - This is a document where a director states the mission, vision, ambition, and goals for working with the enterprise architecture in the organization and declares him or herself the owner of the architecture. The architecture manager and architects responsible and accountable for EA are often named. The document describes how working with EA in the organization can be seen as a success and how that can be measured. Every year, this document should be updated.
- EA Process - The process description of working with the enterprise architecture in the organization: how are various roles in the organization going to ask, create and use EA products?
- EA Framework - Document with description and visualization of the recognized architecture in the organization: responsibility, accountability, which architectures are and in scope and out of scope for which years, the main parts of architecture to manage and administer.
- EA Product Roadmap and EA Product Calendar - A document when the documents, products, and visualizations in this list are produced and delivered.
- Architecture Team Services Menu - A document, like an intranet page that describes the services the architecture team provides to the stakeholders.
- Meetings Schedule - When is everyone going to meet to discuss the creation of products, provide input, provide feedback, and use them?
- Application Landscape - Document with description and views of various aspects of all the applications in the organization: f.i. Dependencies, relationships, technologies, concepts, principles, methods, standards, life cycles, and responsibilities.
- Process Landscape - Document with description and views of various aspects of all the processes in the organization: f.i. Dependencies, relationships, technologies, concepts, principles, methods, standards, life cycles, and responsibilities.
- Enterprise Functions Overview (Structure Vision) - A document with a description and visualization of the leading enterprise, business, and IT functions and domains that currently are applied to the organization.
- Architecture Concepts Overview (Architecture Vision) - A document with a description and visualization of the main concepts that currently are applied to the organization.
- Architecture Principles Overview - A document with the description and visualization of the principles of the concepts that currently are applied to the organization.
- Standards Overview - A document with the description and visualization of the standards per domain per architecture layer that currently are applied to the organization. And the level of compliance with these standards.
- Capability Landscape
- Strategy Map
- Business Model
- Data Landscape
- IT Landscape
- Glossary of Terms
- Architecture Design Decisions
- Architect Role Description
- EA Year plan or EA Policy
- EA Vision Statement
- Enterprise Architecture Blueprint
- Projects Overview / Portfolio
- Functional and Technical visualization of a solution or concept per project
- Business Architecture Section - If Business Architecture is recognized as architecture in the framework
- IT Architecture Section - If IT Architecture is recognized as architecture in the framework
- ... Architecture Section
Make sure that you create a calendar where you plan when what product is created and delivered. Make sure that for every product, there is someone who asked for it or ordered it, and someone is the owner and administrator or editor of it (for controlled maintenance).
First, you will mainly create visualizations as part of the management overview products. Over time, you will see that you are creating visualizations for different stakeholders. This is what we call views. You may need a view per type of stakeholder to have a product used by that stakeholder.
2. AS-IS Architecture and TO-BE Architecture
In architecture, we distinguish between the current (AS-IS) and future (TO-BE) state of the architecture.
Visualizations of the views of the AS-IS architecture will show the principles and standards per domain per architecture layer that are currently in place or effective.
Visualizations of the views of the TO-BE architecture will show the principles and standards per domain per architecture layer that is in the future implemented or effective.
With the visualizations of two different moments of architecture, one can create a roadmap to migrate the whole or part of the organization from working with the current set of principles and standards to the new future set of principles and standards.
More Information About using Dragon1 Enterprise Architecture
On this page, we have shown that Dragon1 is an open EA method. Dragon1 is also an EA software platform with strategic Enterprise Architecture tools available.
If you have any questions about working with Enterprise Architecture or want support from a Dragon1 Expert, please get in touch with us at info@dragon1.com.