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Why CIOs Fail at Increasing Awareness Through Enterprise Architecture

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Next week, next month, next quarter, next year – that is when most CIOs and CTOs are going to get to the task of increasing their awareness of the larger system they are struggling to optimize. The common refrain goes like this: “After I finish [Insert name of current crisis with respect to making the applications and infrastructure work as intended], then I will have some time for increasing my understanding of our technology portfolio and how it serves the business.”

As we all know, that blessed tomorrow where we have time to take a step back absolutely never comes. That is why, as I pointed out in my first article in this series (“How Enterprise Architecture Raises IT's Game”), so few companies rise above Level 1 of IT maturity, the struggle to make technology work. The second article (“Enterprise Architecture: Moving from Chaos to Business Value”) explains how enterprise architecture methods can help CIOs move to Level 2 where IT is aligned to provide maximum value to the business. At Level 3 the aligned IT is optimized to support the business as efficiently as possible.

Today we will address two enduring barriers to progress toward higher levels of IT maturity, the fear of performing an analysis and the difficulty of convincing others to join the party.

While it seems strange, most CIOs and CTOs (which I refer to collectively as CITOs) live in a state of limited awareness out of fear. CITOs are more comfortable running operations, evaluating technology, and developing new solutions than they are attempting to understand how and why the businesses use the systems they create. CITOs lack the temperament for the fuzzy world of business processes, and also lack the skills. If CITOs do start poking around, asking questions, developing metrics about how a business process is run, they will most likely be greeted by, “Why don’t you go do your job instead of measuring how I do mine?”

In other words, doing a good job of the analysis required by an enterprise architecture means that CITOs must escape the comforting cocoon of technology concerns, something that is never easy for them.

Fear of bad news is the other roadblock to a thorough analysis of how technology supports a business. Any sincere and thorough study is going to uncover inefficiency, waste, and practices that just do not make sense. It is rare when such findings are welcomed without recriminations. In most companies, whoever is responsible for the waste takes a political hit. In other words, CITOs may avoid taking the lead on enterprise architecture because it can lead to intense negative reactions.

But at some point, something really bad or really good happens. In a crisis, politics can get set aside as everyone takes a deep breath and focuses on how to make the business survive. In good times, a similar thing can happen in which the glow of success makes everyone feel secure. For whatever reason, when the cry goes up, “What are we all doing around here? Why aren’t we working better together? What can we do about this?” CITOs should answer the call by suggesting the application of an established enterprise architecture methods. One of them is TOGAF, developed by The Open Group,  a consortium of IT users and suppliers that develops standards facilitating Boundaryless Information Flow™.

Then, as we pointed out in the first two articles, the key is to keep the focus on the business. The “enterprise architecture is dead” crowd rightly points out that it is easy to get lost in the methodology - the description of the TOGAF Architecture Development Method runs to 150 pages, with TOGAF containing another 600 pages of further guidance and resources for enterprise architecture development. Applying everything all at once cannot be done and is not the point.

The CITO who wants enterprise architecture to succeed will see initial efforts as the first step toward creating a center of excellence that can help the rest of the company make sense of itself. Nothing succeeds like success, so it is crucial that the early projects are chosen carefully and produce substantial benefits with a reasonable amount of effort.

“To demonstrate value, the first problem must be well-defined and well bounded,” said Len Fehskens, Vice President Skills and Capabilities of The Open Group. “A useful enterprise architecture method will help define and bound the problem as well as its solution, while ensuring that it is driven by a real business need.”

The best result is that the line-of-business that is helped by this first enterprise architecture analysis wants to expand the initial project. The artifacts that illustrate business processes and their connection to supporting applications and infrastructure become tools to help manage complexity and change. When other executives see the results, they should want the same for their business. As more and more of the business gets analyzed and mapped, the scope of the enterprise architecture effort can expand.

In the best case, enterprise architecture is adopted as a management discipline by a company, the way that every part of the business keeps track of itself and communicates what it does to the rest of the company. It is vital that these descriptions are not held as sacrosanct. They should be more like a living snapshot on a scratch pad that is ready to be changed. When new business conditions or regulations arise, the work of adapting the enterprise architecture quickly gets everyone on the same page so an effective response can be crafted. If enterprise architecture is a heavy weight and bloated description of a business, then it indeed will soon be dead. It is vital to analyze your business to match the way the analysis will be used. Experiments will be required to determine the right level of detail. Going whole hog with all encompassing and incredibly intricate models is a rookie mistake. Better to have a targeted, rough model that gets detailed as you understand how to use it.

The key is to increase awareness of the big picture. CITOs can live with their heads down, focused only on technology. So can other leaders of lines of business and functions who become slaves to the metrics that they are judged by. The goal of enterprise architecture is to educate as many people as possible so that decisions can be made with the whole business in mind, not just on the basis of what makes sense for one person or one part. Companies who get to this level of maturity know exactly what is working and what is not working at all times. Such knowledge allows change to happen in anticipation of a crisis, instead of in reaction to one.

Dan Woods is chief technology officer and editor of CITO Research, a firm focused on the needs of CTOs and CIOs. He consults for many of the companies he writes about. For more stories about how CIOs and CTOs can grow visit CITOResearch.com.