No transformation without transparency

Can a home renovation be successfully planned without precise knowledge of what’s already there? The clear answer is: Of course not! A comprehensive understanding of the house, its various rooms and the condition of the garden is essential to at least roughly estimate what renovations and improvements are needed.

The need for ‘renovations’ or to adapt to the rapidly changing digital landscape has led companies to put more into digital transformation. Companies invest in new processes, buy licenses, develop

systems or build another interface. These projects are often driven by the particular interests of individual departments. The medium-term result is often a confusing mess on the IT landscape.

Transformation projects are once again at the top of the Swiss CIO agenda this year [1]. However, a lack of overview of the existing IT landscape and a lack of consensus on how to change the landscape may jeopardize these projects. IT management is well advised to take action here. But how?

Enterprise architecture brings transparency

Enterprise architecture is a management discipline. It creates transparency regarding the essential relationships in the organization and thereby enables communication between isolated stakeholders. As such, enterprise architecture is primarily a communication tool for answering strategic questions such as:

• Which specialist applications are used – and by whom?
• Which strategic relevance do the specialist applications have?
• What is affected exactly by changes at this interface?
• Who else needs contract data?
• Which systems do we need to replace based on their lifecycle – and when?

The basis for answering such questions is a networked inventory of current stock. Such inventories are essential as they form the foundation for understanding, planning and managing an organization's entire IT landscape and business processes.

However, one would do well to avoid the likes of Excel, Visio, Wikis or Word for documentation – those times are long gone. Instead, choose an enterprise architecture tool. These have undergone a remarkable evolution in recent years, and their use today hardly requires any training.

We recommend focusing on the following 4 inventories:

1. Organization units

2. Processes, products and services

3. Specialist applications, their interfaces and suppliers

4. Data and its criticality

It is particularly important to show how these elements are linked. Such links show the interdependencies of the elements and make it possible to estimate the effects of changes in a well-founded and controlled manner.

Organizations often deploy enterprise architecture in the following situations:

• During the survey of the actual architecture and for the development of the target architecture
• When revising the IT strategy
• When expanding the application landscape initiated by the needs of a department
• When shutting down/releasing an infrastructure element affects elements of the application landscape
• When consolidating the application landscape with the aim of reducing complexity
• For sourcing decisions and trend assessments as a basis for strategic decisions
• Supporting budget planning and the influence of the portfolio on the architecture.
• Planning and deciding ad hoc measures
• Exploiting synergies in projects

Start pragmatically

Anyone who wants to start with enterprise architecture is well advised to do so pragmatically. Not too much and not too complex: Too many over-motivated initiatives begin with an overly complex desired model that is intended to cover ‘everything’. This leads to high initial investments with incomplete data and little benefit.

We recommend a proven approach in 3 stages:

1. In the first step, one determines which strategic questions to answer with enterprise architecture, maps the framework of the inventories, and decides on a tool.

2. In the second step, one fills the tool with initial data, shows the organization the benefits of enterprise architecture, and empowers it in the sustainable use of the tool as part of the decision-making process.

3. In the third step, the organization refines the collected data. One accompanies this process and ensures that its use is sustainably anchored in the organization.

Conclusion

Enterprise architecture creates a blueprint for an organization's IT landscape. Similar to a house renovation, it’s essential to understand the current structures before changes are made.

With an enterprise architecture, organizations can make targeted investments because they know exactly which dependencies already exist and where bottlenecks or redundancies occur. Planning for change and innovation becomes more precise and informed as the potential impact on the overall system is better understood. This enables effective transformation, as decision-makers have full control over the change processes and can better assess risks.

We recommend

• Starting pragmatically and focusing on the important strategic issues
• Viewing enterprise architecture as a communication tool to activate and facilitate discussions between isolated stakeholders
• Using an established enterprise architecture tool that facilitates navigation within the elements and creates visual overviews.

Benefit from our experience to avoid common mistakes. The IT world is constantly changing – we know the challenges of enterprise architecture first-hand. Based on our practical experience, we offer this expertise as a consulting service.