…to a high quick-to-value EA Practice.
This past week I attended a local PMI dinner meeting where a friend of mine was speaking on the evolution of Project Management, Business Architecture, and Service Management in the IT Organization. Listening to his presentation which was very well articulated, seemed to be amazingly aligned to pet project over the past couple of weeks.
The internal project is to develop a new strategic vision of what the end result of the enterprise architecture process and outputs might look like. In doing so, the process has been to consider what other frameworks and body of knowledge(BOK) might add to the process and artifacts, which include frameworks like TOGAF, Zachman, PEAF, ITIL and body of knowledge like PMBOK, BABOK, and EABOK. By being open minded and embracing different EA Frameworks, standards, and certifications can produce a high quick-to-value EA practice based on a path of least resistance.
For instance, consider the TOGAF Framework phases A (Architecture Vision) and B (Business Architecture). These could easily embrace the BABOK approaches and outputs from business strategy and architecture reports, market studies, organizational structures, goals, functions, product lines, feasibility studies, impact and risk analysis, business cases, and project scope just to name a few. Many Business Analysts, are now seeking certification as Business Analysts from organizations such as the International Institute of Business Analysis.
Another example are the TOGAF phases B (Business Architecture), E (Opportunities and solutions), F (Migration Planning), G (Implementation Governance) which might embrace the PMBOK since many of these include developing business strategies, business cases, project scope, implementation/migration strategies and schedules, as well as implementation schedules. Now in many cases Project Managers might end up being the business analysts/architects but in any case they have been performng these services for quite some time.
Finally TOGAF phases A-G could include the ITIL service management framework which many people are seeking certification in and is a very hot skill and practice. Understanding the importance of business processes and how they might impact business results, or how technology might impact business processes and results is all contained within service management. How information, applications, and technology solution options are architected also impact the organizations service management and applicable business cases. Including these as part of an organizations delivery teams is key to maximizing an organizations return while minimizing risk in business process services.
There are many options to introducing EA to your organization. It might be starting to understand what skills your organization already has, embrace and integrate into those skills and resources. Imagine using certified business analysts or supporting another manager in certifying his business analysts, consider the same for project managers and service management professionals. By embracing an EA framework(s) and understanding your organizations current state may result in an easier method to get a high value added EA practice up and going.
Darin Paton been a member of a structured enterprise architecture(EA) team since 1998-2007 and as a consultant in many Western Canadian organizations observing different maturity levels. Darin has lead Enterprise Architecture teams, provided implementation and operational leadership, and has delivered high-value business margins and IT cost savings throughout his IT career.
Best Regards,
Darin Paton
Cornerstone Consulting Inc.
Specializing in EA, Strategic IT, & Enabling Technologies
M: +1 403.472.7744
E: dpaton
Cornerstone Consulting Inc. 
I think its really good that you are looking to see what is out there, but I think some areas (ITIL for example) stray outside the EA domain.
Your approach was more or less the approach I also adopted when creating PEAF.
Just to let you know you may want to delay getting to grips with PEAF as v2 is being released next month and I’d hate for you to have to duplicate work.
For a sneak preview of what PEAF defines EA to be and for the structure and content of v2 please have a look at http://www.pragmaticea.com/v2preview.asp for general information and http://www.pragmaticea.com/docs/v2/peaf-overview.pdf for a more detailed overview of what’s in v2.
Kevin,
Thank you for the feedback and the link to the PEAFv2. I also genuinely appreciate your comments about ITIL not being a part of EA, however, I would have to disagree with you. When executing Business Process Re-design or simply implementing a new technology for an existing process (which would probably cause some BPR), the process should have a service level based on it’s criticality to the business. This then will affect the target state design and Total Cost of Ownership. With the appropriate incorporation of ITIL/Service Management into the EA process will affectively ensure a robust design lowering the risk of financial loss to the business.
Take care and thanks again,
Darin Paton.
@Darin: “When executing Business Process Re-design or simply implementing a new technology for an existing process (which would probably cause some BPR), the process should have a service level based on it’s criticality to the business. This then will affect the target state design and Total Cost of Ownership.”
Hmm. Very interesting.
I see where you are coming from now, and I think we are both correct…
EA is about strategic planning. ITIL and service management is all about operations. (Of course they have to be designed and built too)
I agree that service levels should be based on criticality to the business and that and TCO could be seriously affected by that.
I see the definition of business services and the assignment of those services to different service levels (along with a definition of those service levels including cost) as part of the information you would model in an EA model (note that an EA model is only one part of EA) and therefore I can see why you say ITIL is part of EA. You can see this echoed in the PEAF Metamodel (http://www.pragmaticea.com/display-doc.asp?DocName=peaf-model-metamodel) on page 7 which defines and entity called a service and an attribute of that entity is Tier – ” The service tier the services sits in e.g. Tier 0=B2B/B2C, 1=Business Critical, 2=Business Significant, 3=Business Support, 4=Business Management”
Since ITIL is a service management framework we can’t talk in terms of ITIL and EA we have to talk in terms of Service Management and Enterprise Architecture. (We could talk in terms of ITIL and PEAF)
So, I see Enterprise Architecture and Service Management as two separate entities but they do have an interface. This interface is not a straight line though. I.e. Instead of drawing two boxes butted up to each other, one labelled “Enterprise Architecture” and one labelled “Service Management” I see those “boxes” as jigsaw pieces. Each having a defined domain but with some overlap.
Exactly Kevin! Service Management, it’s processes, framework, and methodologies are and need to be their own entity/domain, however they 1) Need to be considered in strategic planning; and are/can be 2) strategic in themselves depending on the organization (Production and Service Management Organizations). The initial Blog is just communicating with EA’s in organizations to consider and to be flexible in using existing organizational resources, frameworks, and methodologies to collaboratively develop an EA Strategy. Many times it is more than just an exercise in “Developing an EA Strategy”. It’s about influencing and partnering with internal resources which have exceptional skills in areas that will make the EA Design stand out and most importantly…. “Be embraced with a passion to execute”…
Kevin – Thank you so much for your comments and openness!
Take care and keep in touch,
Darin Paton.