Demystifying Enterprise Architecture: A Modern Perspective

This article is my attempt to shed light on what enterprise architecture is, why it matters, and how it bridges the critical gap between business goals and IT capabilities. Over the past few months, I’ve had conversations with colleagues who are relatively new to EA and eager to understand its nuances. Their questions—about roles, responsibilities, and the value EA brings—are both insightful and incredibly relevant:

I was also recently recommended a book called “The Practice of Enterprise Architecture” which provides some simple and insightful answers to these questions.

The Practice of Enterprise Architecture –

A Modern Approach to Business and IT Alignment

Svyatoslav Kotusev, 2021

🔗 https://www.amazon.de/Practice-Enterprise-Architecture-Approach-Alignment-dp-064508252X/dp/064508252X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

I found the book so interesting and helpful that I wanted to share some of its insights not only with my colleagues but also with my broader network. To understand the need for EA and the value it brings, it’s crucial to look at the big picture, which according to Svyatoslav Kotusev includes:

• The general role of IT in modern organizations
• The potential benefits and threats of IT
• How to realize business value of information systems
• Viewing modern organizations as complex socio-technical systems of business and IT
• And most importantly: Business-IT Alignment

Enterprise architecture often finds itself misunderstood - not just by newcomers, but even by experienced people. Roles like software engineers, solution architects, and enterprise architects are sometimes conflated, leading to an undervaluation of EA’s pivotal role in driving strategic alignment and innovation, but we come to that later.

Why do we need Enterprise Architecture?

Business-IT Alignment is critical for leveraging IT effectively within organizations. In an ideal world, IT systems would seamlessly support business goals and processes, but achieving this alignment is challenging. This means that all information systems would correspond to the organization's business needs in the most effective way. One key reason is the diversity of perspectives within an organization: business and IT, strategic and tactical, internal and external actors all have unique insights and priorities. How can we get there?

Enterprise Architecture (EA) offers a structured approach to overcome these challenges by facilitating coordinated, collective decision-making. As Kotusev explains in The Practice of Enterprise Architecture, no single person or group possesses all the expertise needed to achieve perfect alignment. EA provides a "big picture" perspective, enabling different actors to collaborate, communicate, and make decisions based on a shared understanding of organizational goals and constraints. Kotusev says to view the entire organization as a single "big brain" that makes all decisions based on the whole picture taking internal and external environments and all areas of IT and business into account.

However, Svyatoslav Kotusev in his book also acknowledges that a “perfect state” of Business-IT Alignment is not achievable in any organization. No single person or group of people is competent enough to make such optimal planning decisions. The reasons include the lack of knowledge or expertise (e.g., you can't find a solution to a problem if you lack expertise in certain technology fields), cognitive biases that affect decision-making, and the skill to persuade others - essential for successful implementation.

So, when no one person or group within an organization possesses all these capabilities, what could be the solution?

The answer is “collective decision-making”. Business-IT Alignment heavily relies on the involvement of different types of actors, which in turn requires effective coordination of business and IT changes across these multiple actors or stakeholders.

The book identifies three different types of actors:

• Business vs. IT actors
• Strategic vs. tactical actors
• Internal vs. external actors

These distinctions also represent the main challenges in effectively coordinating the multiple actors or stakeholders, as the diversity among them can hinder effective communication, mutual understanding, and collaborative partnership, ultimately undermining Business-IT Alignment. By improving communication and planning across all relevant stakeholders, EA reduces wasted IT investments, improves business performance, and enables organizations to respond swiftly to change. Ultimately, Enterprise Architecture serves as a bridge between business and IT, driving innovative change and creating business value by aligning operational activities with the organization's long-term vision.

Let’s have a look at an example. An enterprise architecture transformation can be part of a broader digital transformation. Imagine a company A facing challenges in managing its complex global logistics operations. Its IT systems are fragmented with multiple legacy platforms, leading to inefficiencies, high costs and limited agility. Agility that is needed to be able to adapt to a constantly changing environment like customer needs for real-life tracking.

Company A starts multiple modernization journeys with one being the establishment of an EA Practice. With an EA force, consisting of enterprise architects, solution architects and business architects, they want to ensure from now on alignment between business needs and IT capabilities. The Practice starts with documenting the current state of existing IT systems, business processes, uncovering manual processes that were slowing down operations.and systems with limited scalability to support future growth. In a Future State Vision they define three two main goals:

• Enhance customer experience with real-time data and predictive analytics.
• Improve operational efficiency through automation and cloud adoption.

Which leads to a target architecture that supports the transition from legacy systems to a microservices-based architecture, says to deploy a cloud-based infrastructure for scalability and cost efficiency and integrate real-time tracking and IoT-enabled data collection.

With a roadmap leading the way, company A finally gets to implement the initiatives while also introducing Governance structures to ensure adherence to architectural principles.

By systematically analyzing, planning, and implementing changes through a robust EA practice, the company transformed its operations and stayed competitive in a rapidly evolving industry.

What is Enterprise Architecture?

“The highest level (typically) of description of an organization and typically covers all missions and functions.” – The Open Group, The TOGAF® Standard, Version 9.2

Enterprise Architecture (EA) helps describe various aspects of an organization from an integrated business and IT perspective, aiming to improve alignment between business and IT by focusing on business processes, organizational roles, business unit structures, and more, while also taking IT planning into account. The book even states that currently, EA is mostly focused on IT-related views, answering questions such as how the introduction of a new information system might modify specific business processes and roles.

“An enterprise architecture (EA) is a conceptual blueprint that defines the structure and operation of organizations. The intent of enterprise architecture is to determine how an organization can effectively achieve its current and future objectives. Enterprise architecture involves the practice of analyzing, planning, designing and eventual implementing of analysis on an enterprise.” -Alexander S. Gillis, TechTarget

EA can also be seen as a “collection of artifacts that serve as a communication medium”, providing tools to facilitate communication, collaboration, and mutual understanding for strategic decision-making and IT systems implementation, thereby enabling effective knowledge sharing. These artifacts offer critical information about every planning decision relevant to the concerns of all involved stakeholders. Within this context, EA can be used for discussion, negotiation, and balancing the interests of all stakeholders. Artifacts provide descriptions of an organization from an integrated business and IT perspective, which are important for the various actors involved. A set of these artifacts is referred to as an EA domain.

There are many EA domains, each reflecting typical facets of an organization. The main EA domains, as Kotusev explains in The Practice of Enterprise Architecture, include:

Business domain: Focuses on business operations, such as capabilities, processes, roles, and so on, to align processes with business goals and help stay competitive.

Application domain: Examines the organization from an end-user application perspective, e.g. decide which legacy applications need to be modified or replaced, ensuring all application support the organizations business model and meet user expectations.

Data domain: Concentrates on the organization’s core data and how that data is managed as well as for compliance and risk management, e.g. structuring data governance, ensuring secure data flow and meeting regulatory standards.

Integration domain: Looks at system integration mechanisms, e.g. when organizations acquire new firms and need to align different systems for standardized data flows between new systems and existing ones.

Infrastructure domain: Examines the organization's underlying IT infrastructure, e.g. analyzing and planning infrastructure needs to ensure scalability and resilience to maintain high business service quality.

Security domain: Views the organization from a security perspective, e.g. how to ensure that the cloud infrastructure meets security requirements for customers with high security needs like industries such as finance or healthcare. This domain can enable security policies to protect sensitive data while also supporting business operations.

These EA domains should not be seen in isolation but rather as interdependent layers. For example, data from the data domain is used by applications in the application domain. As mentioned earlier, EA is often focused on IT-related views, and these different views are reflected in the EA domains and layers of an organization. While the business domain is primarily a business-enabling domain, all the other listed domains are directly related to technology and can be viewed as technical domains. Kotusev further distinguishes between the business, application, and data domains as business-enabling, while identifying the integration, infrastructure, and security domains as business-supporting EA domains.

When do we use EA?

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is typically used when organizations reach a level of complexity that requires coordinated alignment between business processes and IT systems. Complexity makes systems difficult to understand, and the more challenging a system is to grasp, the less agile an organization becomes in responding to change. Agility refers to an organization's ability to quickly and effectively respond to changes, whether they are internal shifts or external market dynamics and depends on alignment of strategy, people and processes. EA is used to support strategic analysis, decision-making, and planning activities, ensuring that IT investments align with business objectives.

Another good way to approach this question is looking at the challenges companies face. Enterprises undergo constant change due to changing customer needs, standards or governance, and business requirements. Governance structures are especially essential for managing the decision-making process in EA, particularly when balancing the diverse needs of stakeholders. Enterprise Architecture can assist with business capabilities being shared across the organization, business operation costs, agility within the organization and change management, and ensuring alignment with the vision, mission, goals and objectives of the enterprise. That means the key questions for Enterprise Architects revolve around:

Enterprise Architecture is already a very established field and there are a lot of frameworks and methodologies to use as guidance, such as well-known frameworks like TOGAF, Zachman Framework, or others. They play a crucial role in EA and help to practical apply best practices and standardized methods.

An Enterprise Architecture journey typically begins with the definition of EA principles and standards, which translates business and IT strategies into a clear set of guidelines. This foundational step ensures that subsequent architectural work aligns with the organization's strategic objectives. Following this, the development of target architectures takes place, which involves outlining the desired state of various enterprise domains. This step guides the organization in moving towards its strategic goals.

Next, the focus shifts to technology lifecycle management, where continuous evaluation and identification of change requirements ensure that the architecture evolves in response to new business needs and technological advancements. This ongoing process is critical to maintaining the relevance and effectiveness of the architecture.

Design is a critical phase in the EA journey, where high-level strategies and goals are translated into detailed, actionable plans. This involves:

1. Architecture Blueprint Design: Creating detailed architectural blueprints for specific domains or solutions. These blueprints act as a visual and conceptual representation of how various components will interact within the system. This step is often handled by domain and solution architects who tailor the blueprints to meet the specific needs of their areas while adhering to enterprise-wide standards.
2. Solution Architecture Design: During this phase, the design of specific solutions takes shape. Solution architects focus on creating robust designs that align with the broader target architecture. They ensure that each solution fits within the enterprise’s strategic framework and that all dependencies, integrations, and technological choices are well-defined and justified.

The implementation phase involves turning the architectural designs into reality. This phase includes:

1. Architecture Support Management for Projects and Services: Throughout the implementation, architects provide continuous support to project teams. This includes ensuring that the implementation follows the defined blueprints and addressing any issues or deviations that arise. Architects act as guides to maintain the integrity of the design and facilitate any necessary adjustments.
2. Architecture Implementation: Here, the actual development and deployment of the architectural components occur. Architects and implementation teams work closely to bring the architectural designs to life. This involves coding, configuring systems, integrating different components, and ensuring that everything operates cohesively as planned. It also includes testing to verify that the implementation meets both functional and non-functional requirements.
3. Training and Community Management: During and after implementation, training and community management are crucial. This ensures that all stakeholders, including end-users and IT staff, understand how to use and maintain the new systems effectively. Community management fosters ongoing engagement and knowledge sharing, which is vital for the successful adoption and sustainability of the architecture.

Architecture review and approval are integral to this journey, providing a checkpoint to validate that the architectural implementations are in line with the established standards and principles. Regular reviews help maintain consistency, quality, and compliance across different projects and initiatives.

Ultimately, an EA architecture journey is not a linear path but a dynamic process that adapts to the organization's evolving needs. It encompasses strategic planning, continuous improvement, and a robust governance framework to ensure that the enterprise's architecture remains aligned with its long-term goals.

Where do we apply EA?

EA is applied across a wide range of industries and sectors, reflecting its versatility and broad relevance. It is extensively used in industries where organizations face complex operational challenges that require a coherent strategy for integrating business and IT. Beyond the private sector, EA is also widely adopted in public sector organizations, including national governments, hospitals, universities, and non-profit entities. The use of EA in these diverse contexts demonstrates its effectiveness in facilitating communication, coordination, and strategic alignment, regardless of the industry or sector. Depending on the tasks Enterprise Architects talk to the executive level for a more strategic and high-level perspective on business goals, management level for translating the strategy into action based on processes, resources and capabilities or operational level for detailed, implementation-focused tasks.

The more important question is where not to use EA!

As John Zachman, the father of enterprise architecture, said, “Architecture enables you to accommodate complexity and change. If you don't have Enterprise Architecture, your enterprise is not going to be viable in an increasingly complex and changing external environment.” As digital transformation continues to evolve, the role of enterprise architecture is becoming highly critical. Organizations that can function agile towards change and proactively adapt to trends like AI, cloud computing, and microservices will be better positioned to thrive in the future.

What is the role of an Enterprise Architect and what makes a good Enterprise Architect?

When I started my career, I had no idea that all my early roles and experiences would eventually shape me into a well-rounded Enterprise Architect. For a long time, both I and the people advising me on my career misunderstood the qualities that an Enterprise Architect needs—qualities that truly differentiate this role from other architecture roles. More than once, experienced professionals described an EA to me as simply a Solution Architect or a Software Engineer.

This reflection is for anyone asking themselves: What is the role of an Enterprise Architect?

LeanIX has put it very simple, an Enterprise Architect brings a very broad technical expertise and high strategic focus. But I would like to differentiate it even more. There are many authors who tried to find the right words to explain what an EA is. Enterprise architects are the primary developers of EA artifacts and key actors within enterprise architecture management. This role makes them responsible for bringing together all relevant stakeholders, collecting necessary data, and completing other activities required to create EA artifacts. Enterprise architects serve as planners and integrators of business and IT-related strategies within organizations.

The book The Practice of Enterprise Architecture outlines numerous responsibilities for EAs, including:

• Analyzing the external technological environment
• Studying the internal organizational and IT environment
• Communicating with various business and IT stakeholders and understanding their concerns
• Facilitating dialogue and conversations between different stakeholder groups
• Acting as intermediaries or “translators” between diverse stakeholders
• Finding, proposing, and discussing optimal planning decisions that satisfy the concerns of all stakeholders
• Developing and updating EA artifacts to support discussions and document agreements reached
• Ensuring the execution of agreed-upon planning decisions as reflected in EA artifacts
• Peer-reviewing and approving EA artifacts developed by other architects
• Establishing and maintaining a repository of EA artifacts
• Setting up necessary software tools for working with EA artifacts
• Establishing, running, and optimizing EA-related processes

Some of the key characteristics of an enterprise architect include effective communication skills, being a team player, innovator, and systems thinker, as well as being comfortable with both business and IT-related topics. It should feel natural for an EA to communicate with all kinds of stakeholders, understand their concerns and needs, and then propose optimal planning decisions. They should also feel confident in discussing and reaching agreements on desired organizational evolution with relevant stakeholders.

Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Briggs, developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in 1962, a personality assessment designed to categorize individuals into 16 distinct personality types. This test uses 126 forced-choice questions to measure preferences across four dichotomies: Extraversion/Introversion (E/I), Sensing/Intuition (S/N), Thinking/Feeling (T/F), and Judging/Perceiving (J/P). By combining these scales, the MBTI provides a framework for understanding different personality types and although the MBTI is often regarded as pseudoscientific, it remains widely used in various settings, including personal development, team building, and organizational culture. One of the MBTI’s 16 personality types is the “Architect” (INTP), characterized as being introverted, intuitive, thinking, and perceiving. Within MBTI Architects are described as thoughtful tacticians who possess a thirst for knowledge, intellectual curiosity, and a deep appreciation for creative ingenuity. They are imaginative and strategic thinkers with a plan for everything. While these traits can be advantageous for a career in architecture, success in the field also requires hard work, problem-solving skills, and a passion for continuous learning.

Beyond these individual personality traits, according to Gartner successful Enterprise Architecture (EA) teams require a diverse set of talents. Gartner identifies five key talents essential for EA teams to thrive (https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-talents-needed-for-a-successful-enterprise-architecture-team):

1. Strategic Thinking: The ability to develop and execute business strategies that align with organizational goals.
2. Service Design: The creativity to design innovative services and experiences that enhance user engagement.
3. Innovation: A talent for fostering new ideas and driving innovation within the organization.
4. Collaboration: The skill to orchestrate effective collaboration across various departments and teams.
5. Future Navigation: The foresight to guide the organization towards future trends and technologies.

In conclusion, Enterprise Architecture (EA) plays a vital role in bridging the gap between business and IT, fostering alignment, and enabling organizations to navigate the complexities of modern operations. By providing a structured approach to planning and communication, EA ensures that strategic decisions are made well-informed and that IT investments deliver maximum value. As organizations continue to evolve, the principles and practices of EA will remain essential tools for driving innovation, efficiency, and sustainable growth. Whether you're new to EA or seasoned in the field, embracing its insights can empower you to contribute meaningfully to your organization's success.