EA is dead

Article by Karin Forsberg, Ortelius Management AB & Zakariya Sababi, Institute of Business Administration (IAE) of Perpignan

Enterprise Architecture at zero speed, that is the short and simple conclusion after months of studies on Enterprise Architecture and a number of EA tools offered on the international market performed by Zakariya Sababi, Institute of Business Administration (IAE) of Perpignan*. Another conclusion is a lack of substantial innovation and that development within the field is limited to improved presentation models or web based applications.

The objective expressed by many EA providers, is to align IT and Business. The feeling, more a separation of the two. EA is still misinterpreted by the business and the label “IT tool” sticks steady onto it.

Investments in EA projects are important but the return on investment remains low. In fact at such level that the Gartner group predicts that by year 2012, 40% of today’s EA programs will be stopped.

But EA is far from useless. The study on the contrary show, that most big enterprises have a need to align IT and Business. And the need becomes urgent in serving the agile enterprise, which require rapid adaption to world market changes and prediction of future business opportunities. The EA concept would in fact match perfectly to this need, but only attain a real relevance if it is understood and used throughout the company. To arrive at this position though, it has to evolve.

A Formula 1 car out of power

The Ferrari without engine will never win a single race. It might be a masterpiece beautifully created in advanced materials, but in the pedal car version it would by some be regarded as useless. Others go on justifying the huge investment, hiding behind complexity and time schedules. Next year maybe it will start to move – we hope.
Current EA tools offer capacity to organise and describe models and processes. The tools allow also presenting them nicely and sharing them on the intranet. No doubt, it is due time to get a little bit of “Structure & Order” thinking into the information world. This made great things for production, capturing mismanagement and errors and correcting those closer to the source. So getting things structured is one thing, maintaining them organised as the business develop is a challenge.

Many EA frameworks and tools claim their function as a business tool, but the fact is, that seldom the businesses regard them as productive parts neither of their daily operation, nor for business development. Hardly ever, enterprises mention that EA is a strategy for business development. Rarely the word “Enterprise Architecture” is known by the operations and if so more like an “IT-thing”.

Change of behaviour is indeed a long trip, but one must also ask the question weather it is possible at all with the current vehicle and direction. Will the engine just fall down from the sky one sunny day and turn the piece of art into a cutting edge competitive creation, what it was always meant to be?

Choked engine in a pedal car?

Whatever the status, the eagerness to define EA by different frameworks is in our opinion contra productive, in the essence that it put the different resources into framed boxes. This rigid division introduces obstacles for sharing information and creates unnecessary dependencies. Why boxing Organisation, People, Applications, Processes and Data separately? That is the mere starting point for building duplicates and deteriorating the common language for information by producing dialects impossible to understand outside the own “tribe”.

The effort to manage and keep the global vision becomes unbearable and the system collapses. Another 10 millions of Euros later still there is no evidence of business value and the majority of employees are still working on their uncoordinated islands. There seem to be a fatal misunderstanding about where the well of revenue in the enterprise is located. Revenue is generated from operational excellence and market leadership – not from complicated and rigid IT systems. What is natural logical thinking in a businessman’s or research engineer’s head, has to be reflected by the agility with which information is served to the operational departments of the enterprise. Peculiarity and new technology is not, and will never be an issue by itself – and has to justify its existence by serving, improving and empowering the skills of the co workers.

The predicted stop within 5 years of a major fraction of today’s enterprise architecture programs is no surprise. In fact they have never ever been in motion!

The engine that make EA evolve

To move the Ferrari you may put two horses in front and make them pull the vehicle. Or you begin to develop the superior engine that will boost the capacity exponentially. It is not fancy, it is hard work, you need to refine details, but it is necessary. It is furthermore fundamental to be in symbiosis with the driver and the mechanics to get the design right.

To involve business in the EA initiative is another worn out statement. Business is not interested in yet another framework. They are well familiar with business frameworks and certifications, like ISO 9000, ISO 14000 and TQM to mention a few. For “IT” they just need to free the capacity that “should” have been there to serve them already yesterday. They need the engine!

The desired engine is currently under development and dynamic testing with a number of large and complex Swedish enterprises. The engine – or rather evolving Reference point – is created by the business/operations people themselves. It reflects the expected agility of an experienced human brain, that by experience constantly adjust the course from holistic picture. And moreover align with any viewpoint and persist the testing of numerous brains (logics).

The Reference point is where the logics of business people consolidate into reproducible business context. It is made possible by decades of experience in the conditions of daily business and international enterprise operations – finding patterns and simplifying the essence of information into sustainable structures. The key is balancing structure and content to sustain changes and making them manageable by the business.
The Reference point is created by business people, thus understood by them and simultaneously the template or blueprint for any Information system, or tool. Real power is generated as the business gradually starts to simulate its own operation and use the consolidated logics for their own business development. A business necessity for business people and the engine in any “speedless” EA initiative.

Accelerate EA by Live Modelling™

Enterprises in Sweden already today use the power of Live Modelling™ to reach out from their EA programmes. Stepwise the dynamic Reference point grows in an interactive process between general business logics and samplifying with business content. Live Modelling™ allow reflection in design. To view the model from various angles, to stress it and improve it directly. The more urgent the business problem, the quicker the result. Involving business from day one, at any level, cut months or even years of time consuming and unproductive guessing by IT staff.

To transfer responsibility to the business, from day one, is a change of mind set. It distorts the “ terror balance” and demystifies the 1-0-1 work. But change is possible, and the proof of concept evolving. That it would accelerate the whole IT “masterpiece” is evident. Why then make it so complicated?

Albert Einstein said; -“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”

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Zakariya Sababi has performed an international study on the maturity of Enterprise Architecture and relevant tools. The study constitutes the final work in order to attain a Master degree. The general findings of the work are;