Review of enterprise architecture literature
Discuss about the Enterprise Architecture strategy and governance.
Enterprise Architecture is a very crucial field that has been claimed by many organizations, however, comprehended and implemented by very few of them. The concept of enterprise architecture is relatively new but the activities associated with it have always been very significant for the effective planning of business in any organization. This concept has emerged as a very discrete strategy when business organizations started to realize the importance of individuals who were highly skilled and accountable for structuring, building and executing the computer systems were found to be missing crucial opportunities.
These opportunities could provide them with scope to integrate such systems completely into the entire business framework and facilitate outcomes which could be appreciated. Identifying and evaluating new concepts and ideas across the business organization is the initial step in the process of strategic planning of any successful business organization. It is the team of enterprise architecture that evaluates the concepts and ideas with high priority and devises a business case that assists in pursuing the idea.
In this paper, the literature associated with enterprise architecture shall be reviewed. Further, there will be evaluation of the relationship between the enterprise architects and their stakeholders in the context of analyzing the most effective ways for approaching the governance of enterprise architecture initiatives. There shall be illustrations of various implications for the practice of enterprise architecture along with the training and recruitment of architects in the paper.
In the stated literature by Simon etc al, 2013, the practitioners and scholars of enterprise architecture happen to be very sensitive to the relevance of research of the concept to the community of enterprise architecture practitioner (Simon, Fischbach & Schoder, 2013). In accordance to it has been observed through this literature, “Rozanski, N., & Woods, E. (2007). Software Systems Architecture – Working with Stakeholders using Viewpoints and Perspectives”, that there is an ingoing argument over the prioritizing of frameworks and methods of enterprise architecture governance in a more practical manner or conduct research that would balance the existing narrowed technical concentration of the current research with more focused concentration in the interactions between the stakeholders and the architects (Rozanski & Woods, 2007). According to this literature, there has been a lack in the skills and researches in the context of the society while the existing approaches of governance have been observed to have an audience that has technical orientation.
Evaluation of relationship between architects and their stakeholders
In accordance to Lankhorst, M.M., Iacob, M.E., & Jonkers, H. (2005), Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, It has also been observe through the literature that there has been conduction of existing research into the governance frameworks which are establishing knowledge that concern the various approaches to the management of enterprise architecture and organizational structure (Lankhorst, Iacob & Jonkers, 2005). There has been highlighting of the implications which have resulted in the driving of the structuring of new tools and frameworks.
It has also been noticed that there has been ignorance of the researchers towards establishing social relationships between the business, architects and technology stakeholders along with appreciating the implications of the recruitment and training practices in regards to the enterprise architecture. According to the “Enterprise architecture artifacts as boundary objects-A framework of properties”, the transformation of the enterprise is regarded as the basic changes in any business organization (Abraham, 2013).
These kinds of changes have been observed to have significant implications of various groups of stakeholders. This has been further observed to exhibit prominent diversity in the goals, knowledge along with underlying assumptions of the members. It has been further observed that the author has giving importance to the creation of shared comprehension among the diverse groups of shareholders in regards to the transformations which are further regarded to be key antecedent for obtaining success.
There has been effective analysis of the properties of models of enterprise architecture which have significant contribution to semantic, syntactic along with pragmatics capacities in the business organization. There has been further illustration of the fact that such capacities happen to create shared comprehension among various groups of stakeholders that are involved in the transformation of the enterprise.
In accordance to Ahlemann ,F., Mohan and Scahfczuk in the literature of “People, adoption AND Introduction of EAM , Strategic Enterprise Architecture Management” and Ahlemann ,F and Arbi, F. E in the paper, “AN EAM Navigator, Strategic Enterprise Architecture Management: Challenges, Best Practices and Future Developments” and Aier, S. in “The role of organizational culture for grounding, management, guidance and effectiveness of enterprise architecture principles.” Information Systems and E-Business Management”, there has been increase in the significance and popularity of management of enterprise architecture for providing guidance to the change of highly complex organization (Ahlemann et al., 2012).
It has been observed that the models and methods that are used for analyzing and describing the enterprise architectures are covered in the literatures; however, there has been lack in the presentation of the principles that guide the design of enterprise architecture and the evolution of the concept (Ahlemann et al., 2012).
Implications for the practice of enterprise architecture
These literature have been successful in analyzing the mechanism of principles associated with enterprise architecture which as grounding, management and guidance enterprise architecture planning. N the literature of “Enterprise architecture-Literature overview and current practices” by Aier, S., stakeholders have been found to have varying requirements which concern the perception regarding enterprise architecture (Aier, 2014). According to the author, there has to effective management of the resulting model which has to be printed towards delivering benefits. Further, there have been various aspects in the business organization which present significant contribution to the development of enterprise architecture. These would relate to the education and training of the non-architects and architects, development of communication skills of the architects, intensification of the representation of enterprise architects in projects and support of the tools.
In order to establish the most effective ways for approaching the governance of enterprise architecture initiatives, the author, Aier, S in the paper “Enterprise architecture-Literature overview and current practices”, has focused on the concerns of the stakeholders regarding the views of enterprise architecture (Aier, Riege & Winter, 2008).
The author has devised relationship between the architects and the enterprise architecture to be based on deliverance of increased benefits. In the paper “Key issues for enterprise architecture” by Allega, P, there have been no efforts made by the author to establish a relationship between the architects and the shareholders in regards to the enterprise architecture (Allega, Newman & Frey, 2010).
According to the paper “Using enterprise architecture standards in managing information technology” by Boh , W.F and D. Yellin, it can anticipated that shareholders would look for higher standards of enterprise architecture in the business units (Boh & Yellin, 2006). According to the Foorthuis, R and his paper “A theory building study of enterprise architecture practices and benefits. “Information Systems Frontiers’ 18(3):”, there is no significant efforts made by the author to denote the relationship between the architect and the shareholders in regards to devising approaches of enterprise architecture governance (Foorthuis et al., 2016).
In the literature of “A strategic level approach for conceptualizing enterprise architecture” by Hoyland, there has been lightly touched upon the relationship between the managers which are the shareholders and the architects regarding the decision making in EA (Hoyland, 2012). In the paper if “Quality Enhancements in Creating-Enterprise Architecture” by Nakakawa, there has been presentation of the phases which involve activities regarding the collaboration of enterprise architects and the key stakeholders of the business organizations (Nakakawa, van Bommel & Proper, 2009).
Training and recruitment of enterprise architects
The paper “ Empowering Business Users to Analyze Enterprise Architectures : Structural Model MTACHING TO Configure Visualization “ by Roth, S, provided prominence to the need to establish better relationship , between architects and the stakeholders by creating architectural designs on the basis of visualizations (Roth et al., 2013). This paper also projects significance and prominence on establishing better relationships between the stakeholders and architects through the designing of visualization approaches for non-technical stakeholders. The paper also focuses on creating wizards that are end-user friendly they would assist in having better relationships between the stakeholders and architects.
The paper “The role of the enterprise architect” by Q. Rehmani and Styarno, C has focused on the need for supporting the requirements of the stakeholders which would be achieved through the structuring of various functional roles of the enterprise architect (Strano & Rehmani, 2007). In the paper of “Stakeholder perception of Enterprise Architecture” by Van der Raadt, there has been key focus on the establishment of collaboration between the stakeholders of enterprise architecture and architects which would be through mutual understanding (Van, Schouten & Van, 2008).
With the integration of enhanced practices of enterprise architecture and recruitment at dn training practices in such regard, the business organizations shall be able to measure the success and impact of business strategies in a more efficient manner. With the inclusion of efficient enterprise architecture, the complexity of the business frameworks shall be reduced. The enterprise architecture can provide effective tools for the conduction of business which can only be benefited by the business organization by providing the architects with improved training and recruitment exposure.
There shall be easy and convenient alignment of the business strategy with the required outcome of business with the use of better enterprise architect. This can only be attained by the business organization by training the architect in a proper manner. There can be structuring of efficient and generics solutions to the implementation issues of enterprise architecture by recruiting the efficient enterprise architects. These ways business organizations shall be able to gain better technical solutions like better modeling languages along with business processes for the conduction of business operations. In accordance to the paper “Crossing the Line: Overcoming Knowledge Boundaries in Enterprise Transformation” by Abraham, by training and recruiting the enterprise architects, there can be enhancements in the semantic capacity along with pragmatic capacity of the business organization (Abraham, Aier & Winter, 2015).
The business application, data resources and infrastructure of information technology shall be enhanced by recruiting efficient enterprise architects. There will be reduction in the consumption of time of the business organization by the inclusion of a good team of highly skilled and trained enterprise architects. There can be expansion in the system engineering by creating expansion on the methodologies of the system for the evaluation of the complex systems. This can only be achieved by the business organization by recruiting and training highly skilled enterprise architects. There can be facilitation of smooth communication among various stakeholders of the business organizations with enhancement in the enterprise architecture which shall be regulated by the trained architects. There will be observance of improvement in the consulting praxis along with inform theory by resolving the real issues arising in the business frameworks in business organizations by engaging effective training for the enterprise architects.
There can be increased sharing of knowledge within the business organization as there will be ease in the information sharing process due to the improvement of communication process. This will be facilitated by the recruitment of highly skilled enterprise architects in the business organization. This can also be heighted by providing regular training to the enterprise architects hat are already engaged in the business organization. There shall be ease in the capturing of the algorithm which assists in capturing the technical information regarding the enterprise architect information model with improved training and recruitment.
Conclusion
In this paper, there have been illustrations of reviews of various literatures written by different authors. There has been focus on having a critical analysis of the facts and information provided in the research papers. This has provided in-depth analysis regarding the concept of enterprise architecture. The paper also highlighted different aspects of enterprise architecture which has assisted in gaining valuable knowledge regarding the matter. The focus of the assignment has also been on the establishment of relationship between the enterprise architects and their stakeholders through the approaches of enterprise architecture initiatives and their governance. There has been elaboration of the implications for the recruitment and training of the enterprise architects along with inclusion of EA practice.
References
Abraham, R., 2013, June. Enterprise Architecture Artifacts as Boundary Objects-A Framework of Properties. Association for Information Systems.
Ahlemann, F., Stettiner, E., Messerschmidt, M., Legner, C., Mohan, K. and Schäfczuk, D., 2012. People, adoption and introduction of EAM. In Strategic Enterprise Architecture Management (pp. 229-263). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Ahlemann, F., Stettiner, E., Messerschmidt, M. and Legner, C. eds., 2012. Strategic enterprise architecture management: challenges, best practices, and future developments. Springer Science & Business Media.
Aier, S., 2014. The role of organizational culture for grounding, management, guidance and effectiveness of enterprise architecture principles. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 12(1), pp.43-70.
Allega, P., Newman, D. and Frey, N., 2010. Key issues for enterprise architecture. report G00175837, Gertner Research.
Abraham, R., Aier, S. and Winter, R., 2015. Crossing the line: overcoming knowledge boundaries in enterprise transformation. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 57(1), pp.3-13.
Aier, S., Riege, C. and Winter, R., 2008. Enterprise architecture-Literature overview and current practices. Wirtschaftsinformatik, 50(4), pp.292-304.
Boh, W.F. and Yellin, D., 2006. Using enterprise architecture standards in managing information technology. Journal of Management Information Systems, 23(3), pp.163-207.
Foorthuis, R., Van Steenbergen, M., Brinkkemper, S. and Bruls, W.A., 2016. A theory building study of enterprise architecture practices and benefits. Information Systems Frontiers, 18(3), pp.541-564.
Hoyland, C.A., 2012. RQ-Tech, a strategic-level approach for conceptualizing enterprise architectures. Procedia Computer Science, 12, pp.37-42.
Lankhorst, M.M., Iacob, M.E., & Jonkers, H. (2005). Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Nakakawa, A., van Bommel, P. and Proper, H.E., 2009, June. Quality enhancement in creating enterprise architecture: relevance of academic models in practice. In Working Conference on Practice-Driven Research on Enterprise Transformation (pp. 109-133). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Roth, S., Hauder, M., Zec, M., Utz, A. and Matthes, F., 2013, September. Empowering business users to analyze enterprise architectures: Structural model matching to configure visualizations. In Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops (EDOCW), 2013 17th IEEE International (pp. 352-360). IEEE.
Rozanski, N., & Woods, E. (2007). Software Systems Architecture – Working with Stakeholders using Viewpoints and Perspectives. Upper Saddle River: Addison-Wesley.
Simon, D., Fischbach, K., & Schoder, D. (2013). An Exploration of Enterprise Architecture Research.
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Strano, C. and Rehmani, Q., 2007. The role of the enterprise architect. Information systems and e-business management, 5(4), pp.379-396.
Van Der Raadt, B., Schouten, S. and Van Vliet, H., 2008, September. Stakeholder perception of enterprise architecture. In European Conference on Software Architecture (pp. 19-34). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.