May 1st, 2009 |
I have seen a lot of good work being done in Enterprise Architecture over the last several years, and I am encouraged that many organizations are embracing a more holistic view of the way they deliver their business services. Enterprise Architecture is not about technology. It is not about applications, servers, or databases. It is about aligning all aspects of the business to improve the quality, agility, and cost efficiency of delivering business services.
But what does it mean to be aligned? When your car’s wheels are aligned, they all point in the same direction and work together to propel the car forward. All of the wheels agree on the direction in which they should be moving. For an organization, alignment means that people, process, and technology elements of the business must all work together to move the business forward. To accomplish this, they must all agree on what “forward” actually means. Alignment requires that these elements of the business share a common vision for the future. And, to move anywhere at all, they have to know where they are to begin with.
But as we all know, business and IT have been historically misaligned. In fact, there is often a huge gap – a great divide – between business and IT. How, then, does an organization go about aligning them? Clearly, some sort of change has to take place, but where does one begin? Aligning business and IT requires not only that they share a common vision for the future, but that they also share an understanding of the current state. Lao Tzu said in The Art of War that “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing thyself is enlightenment.” It is this enlightenment that enables organizations to make the right changes to increase alignment. Day by day. Week by week. Year by year.
It can be tempting to get so caught up in trying to understand and document the current state that “analysis paralysis” sets in. How much knowledge is needed to make progress? How soon can the first step be taken? It is important to recognize and embrace the continuous improvement nature of aligning business and IT. This notion should be a fundamental, underlying theme of any Enterprise Architecture program. You need just enough information to be able to make decisions about what to change to get you in the direction of where you want to be. Too much navel gazing and fear of moving in the wrong direction will prevent any progress from being made.
It is also worth noting that the future state never actually arrives. The future is constantly, well, in the future. It is important to continually readjust the long-term vision to include new factors that influence the business. This is like having the wheels on your car realigned. Just because they were aligned last year doesn’t mean they are still aligned after a winter worth of potholes.
As Yogi Bera said, ”You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
Tags: Enterprise Architecture, Business, IT, alignment, incremental
