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08.31.09 Small Businesses Can Benefit From Enterprise Architecture  By Mike Kavis I had a healthy debate this past Friday with a number of EA colleagues on Twitter about EA and if it is only for large companies. Keep in mind that I have never worked in a large IT shop. Most of my career I have worked in IT shops ranging from 50-300 people. Currently I am in a startup and there are 5 IT people. So obviously, I have a different perspective than the typical EA advocate. It all started when I sent out this tweet: Just finished a great discussion about EA & small business with Forrester's Jeff Scott. EA is not just for the big guys!
I had volunteered to participate in Forrester's research effort on the topic "EA Value". I am sure most of Jeff's interviews on this topic were with Fortune 500 companies with huge EA initiatives including some federated EA models. I am sure he was surprised to find a 5 person IT shop talking EA, especially a startup! When asked what the value EA brought to my organization I responded with: The first thing we did was brainstorm for 2 days on the CEO/founder's initial business idea. We created a business architecture that we represented visually on one slide. This picture allowed us to describe our business to both technical and non-technical people. By capturing the entire ecosystem of our industry, we were quickly able to analyze our business model and refine it. We were able to determine what parts of the ecosystem we should compete in and what parts we should partner in. Before we built this visual model, we were planning to compete in areas that we shouldn't have.
Here are a couple of the tweets that caught my eye as this conversation continued throughout the day: RT @madgreek65: ... EA is not just for the big guys! < how can SMB's afford it?
@madgreek65 The question is does SMB really need EA. I think of EA as only for Large Organizations
Before I could type a response, Brenda Michelson beat me to the punch with this tweet: @madgreek65 problem is, many equate EA w/jumbo frameworks & rigid governance, rather than set of values & practices for capability delivery
I couldn't agree more. So maybe our disagreements are all about semantics. I agree that a SMB probably does not need a heavy handed framework. I do, however, think that all companies with an IT department should apply at least some components or best practices from the EA practice. The problem is, EA means many different things to different people. So when I talk about EA, I am not talking about frameworks like TOGAF, Zachman, E2AF, etc. Here is what I am talking about: Enterprise Architecture is a complete expression of the enterprise; a master plan which "acts as a collaboration force" between aspects of business planning such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles; aspects of business operations such as business terms, organization structures, processes and data; aspects of automation such as information systems and databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business such as computers, operating systems and networks (source: IFEAD – Institute for Enterprise Architecture Developments)
To sum it up, EA is the master plan for your business with a focus on
• Strategic Planning
• Business Operations • Automation • Technology Continue reading this article. About the Author: Mike Kavis is a veteran Chief Architect with over 23 years of IT experience including distributed computing, SOA, BPM, data warehouse, business intelligence, and enterprise architecture. Read Mike's blog at Enterprise Initiatives. |
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