Emergent Governance and Enterprise “Business” Architecture

As an Enterprise Architect, you would think that the current financial situation would probably provide the most appropriate climate for Enterprise Architecture – and you would be right. However in the current UK Public Sector context we need to ensure even more than ever that we can consistently demonstrate not just to our managers, but our managers, managers, that we are offering and delivering value across the whole Organisation and across the Enterprise (in local government terms this can include our partners).

The challenge that we face is two fold:

1) Our constant communication and stakeholder engagement challenge – we have plans to communicate and methods for engagement, but we also need to build trust around our deliverables and that is not always in our control, as we don’t provide project/programme management. We do however provide assurance, but we are still developing this alongside the wider governance framework.  It is also not always that easy to simply say that just because we want to encourage and develop re-usable IT components and provide a more agile IT infrastructure and development model that business stakeholders will see you delivering value. These aspects take time and require an Enterprise Architecture programme to be delivered from start to finish. It doesn’t happen overnight, well not in the Public Sector. What the business generally wants is results and not just results but results NOW. They often see more value in project management, although some still think that is a luxury within projects.

The following is an extract from Rik Laurens from CapGemini who outlines this in a much better way that i do.

Projects are managed by projects managers. And good project managers do what they are paid for: reach a predefined target, within time and within budget. It’s good that we have them. And they should stay. But today we are not only interested in a bunch of stove-piped project deliverables anymore. We want re-use of IT assets across projects and we are more than ever interested in project deliverables that are interoperable across the enterprise and beyond and play a role in a broader context. Yes, we still love our project managers that focus on a particular scope and protect that particular scope. But in this era of cloud computing, interoperability, re-use and agility we also need a strong, corporate body that safeguards that the projects are not only doing what is good for the projects themselves but also (or more importantly) do what is good for the enterprise as a whole.

via Rik Laurens – Enterprise Architecture: The Only Way Forward | Capping IT Off | Capgemini

2) We are not always seen as “Enterprise” Architects, mostly we are seen as IT Architects of one kind or the other (we are based within Corporate IT) and that is a boundary that most of the organisation is comfortable with.  This is a big challenge as my role within the team along with a colleague is to develop for the first time an “Enterprise Business Architecture” (EBA).

The EBA challenge is in my opinion a similar one but one which in order to build trust and build some momentum requires a different approach. It is important to acknowledge that we have an agreed Enterprise Architecture programme and have Governance around this but it needs developing and adapting to ensure that it meets the needs of the other architectural effort we are doing. (Information, Technology, Solutions and Business) This is where i believe to help gain some traction and some buy in around “IT people” getting involved in Business issues, we need to find a back door in.

I have thought about this for some time and i’m not sure whether or not it is the right thing to do, but i guess the right thing can only be measured by the type of organisation you work within.

I believe that Governance is the key to unlocking the potential of Enterprise Business Architecture in my organisation and that if we as a team can define, model and deliver a framework of governance that actually supports the over programme. It is worth noting that our Enterprise Architecture team is only 2 years old, so i consider all of what we have done a remarkable success all things considered, but we always want to do more.

The key to governance in my opinion is ensuring that we understand what form of governance we wish to support alongside the type of participation model the culture currently allows. I have posted my thoughts on a Governance Ladder on my personal blog. However in this context we need to ensure that our governance framework is Agile and allows for “Emergent Governance”:

The notion of  emergence, where intelligence is manifested from a collection of minds, is a core concept in chaos theory and the underlying principle in James Surowiecki’s  The Wisdom of Crowds. Scientists have long noted that, on average, the assessments of a crowd are more likely to be correct than the proclamations of an individual expert. From Elisabeth Noelle Neuman’s work on predicting election outcomes ( The Spiral of Silence), to the  central limit theorem that underlies statistical sampling methodology, the emergence of intelligence from large groups has been well established.

The exciting opportunities for governance presented by social networking and collaboration technologies are palpable. The election of a president who understands this potential portents a new golden age for democracy. Perhaps

via Emergent Governance: Who Needs Bees When the Grassroots Swarm the White House

The interesting aspect and similarity i see here is that we have recently undergone some dramatic changes at the top of the organisation. A new Political Administration and a number of our Corporate Management Board retired, this presents opportunities that must be explored and pursued. So with the challenge set out, we now embark on the journey.