EA solutions found inside the White Paper
We've discussed what to do in your first 100 days as an Enterprise Architect. Now let's directly discuss the role of an EA Management tool in supplementing innovation itself.
Reason being, operations frequently commit to digitalization without knowing the full extent of its potential. They modernize because they have to—because their competitors are and so must they.
The experts say move. And so we pick up an Enterprise Architecture guide and move.
This is not necessarily bad, of course. Beneficial change, no matter the underlying motive, is good. It’s just that in pursuits of innovation, occupational perspectives on new technology are often badly communicated.
It’s the goal of next-generation Enterprise Architecture to thereby put structural IT transformations in the context of real, day-to-day business sense. To decipher vague trends using an industry’s language and to crystallize what’s occurring inside an untouchable space. Proof, basically, that business is sharpening thanks to an upgrade—not just conforming.
But the value of a force like digitalization can’t be substantiated in the columns of an Excel sheet. Nor can it be approximated with Visio models alone.
LeanIX is designed, top-down, to let Enterprise Architects access the moving currents of data inside digitaliz(ing)(ed) operations in order to generate meaningful and immediate business-relevant insights. It is collaborative, web-based SaaS built to enable transparency at all levels of an IT network.
It has come to define modern EA, but to see the first steps to becoming successful with it (that is, as much as one can without demoing the product…), it’s worthwhile to read our free e-Book, “Enterprise Architecture Success Kit: Everything you need for a flying start and long-time success”.
Here’s a basic outline of it…
CIOs desire low costs, high innovation, and minimal risk. Application rationalization—the process of reviewing (or “rationalizing”) your application landscape to eliminate or support applications—is a central function of LeanIX proven to leverage user-inputted data to win:
Even Aunt Jemima can make a bad pancake. It’s also possible the most intrepid EAs can succumb to common EA pitfalls while starting with LeanIX. For example:
Don’t be an armchair EA. Step into the enterprise—lay the first spike yourself.
Focus on your core objective(s). Everything else is value-added.
When exploring the remote corners of your organization, it’s quite easy to get side-tracked by impossible problems which aren't yours to fix. Strike a balance between “just enough” technical detail and “just in time” strategic impact.
Solely working with spreadsheets will send you to an early grave. Find a collaborative EA tool that makes Big Picture thinking both possible and fluid.
In 30 days, focus on these six steps to generate immediate results:
Gather all relevant information. Eliminate all bad. Bing-bang-bong: you’ve got the beginnings of a worthwhile EA inventory.
Evaluate applications in this database by focusing on business criticality and functional/technical fit. Be judgmental. Give hard ratings to all.
Exploit the generosity of your friends by requesting, in clear language, their opinion on your applications. Expose your delicate enterprise to public scrutiny.
You’ve got data. You’ve got friends. Now target something high impact and high feasibility (perhaps, say, eliminating redundant applications using a portfolio analysis…?).
Use this deluge of enterprise insight to develop a Business Capability Map—an oft-forgotten yet infinitely rewardable guidebook to every major capability your business needs to operate.
If you want to keep the good times rolling, the EA Success Kit outlines (in much greater detail) some of the following recommendations:
Continue doing regular surveys to keep data quality high—or perhaps implement quality check mechanisms to enforce scheduled review processes.
Digitalization opens architectural information for all to see. Show everyone in your organization how they can be engaged with the browser-based and mobile-optimized LeanIX.
Don’t be clever. Use practical language and ideas when speaking about EA to your stakeholders.
Entwine modern EA management into all of your company’s processes. Give it time, however. After nurturing it in stages, your company will grow to spot opportunities and disruptions to drive innovation instinctively.
Arguing the value of EA and digitalization to your CIO, or any other top brass in your organization, is an unfortunate part of the job. Using LeanIX, your discussions will hopefully become shorter and sweeter because of the following:
The related benefits? Rationalizing applications to know which to keep and throw out. As a result, you’ll reduce risks + costs while making the group leaner and more agile.
LeanIX enables the transparency required to see the running pathways of technology in your IT and Business landscapes. This overview exposes the weakest links in your network to orient data quality improvement measures.
Redundant IT components will break your organization. Seeing detailed reasons why applications are failing security standards will lead to better compliance and technology lifecycle management.
An EA tool provides information on which user group uses which data—and correspondingly on which data supports which business capability. It’s a lovely merry-go-round of clarity sure to enhance your cost and risk management.
Now your CIO and top management can study, in perfect detail, who is providing the essential technology of their company. Do they like what’s happening behind the curtain? Let them decide.
Your IT budget is shown in living colour using an EA tool. The full costs of any given application can be viewed by business capability, user group, provider, project, or IT component.
An EA Management tool powers real-time application intelligence. Operations running on digital business models require this agility to facilitate DevOps methods—the closest possible co-operation between Development and Operations. With LeanIX, you have a platform that delivers the precise structure and up-to-date information to bring Development and Operations into closer collaboration with Business to accomplish the shared needs of all three parties.
Download your free copy of the Enterprise Architecture Success Kit here.