EA - Enterprise Architecture in Action: The changing discipline of Enterprise Architecture

Recently, I made a presentation (below) on the changing discipline of Enterprise Architecture (EA) at a Butler group event. It was interesting to note that a majority of the participants had already implemented foundation elements of EA, such as enterprise-wide technology standards and policies. There was a definite push towards business process architecture. This obviously got us into SOA territory (when was the last time someone tried to do services without processes?)

One of the lead Butler Group analysts went on to explain how one can't necessarily do one without the other, especially if we are looking at a business transformation context. Incidentally, he coined the term ‘Service Oriented Enterprise Architecture’ too, which naturally put a smile on my face as a colleague and I wrote a paper on the missing link between EA and SOA last year. We presented it at the Deutsche Post SOA Days Conference held in Bonn, Germany (this is the pre-eminent SOA conference held in the ASG region).

So, it's good to know that the industry is heading in the same direction. We need to do a much better job with enterprise IT architecture before going the whole hog into the architecture of an enterprise. Today, we are still unable to effectively define an execution platform to support a business operating model. I have also been a fan of learning to walk before one runs! So, let's get the operating model defined and ensure that we collectively define and model the 4 dimensions of EA for that operating model in a consistent, repeatable and manageable fashion.

The presentation: