Logistics

  • 01 November 2024
  • Main Topic — EA Practice Governance Capability
  • Itana Business
    • Steering Committee Updates
    • Working Group Updates
      • IBAWG will have a session next week based upon the current discussion thread in the channel

Notes

Setting the Table

  • Where we left off at the previous session, looking at Strategy:
  • Simple definition of governance:

Governance Scope

  • What is the overall set of capabilities required for EA Practice Governance?  This is the synthesized Yale/Itana model workshopped at EDUCAUSE:
  • Note this divide between The Practice and The Architecture... the scope goes across the entire capability map for Enterprise Architecture.
    • Note also that the "Architecture Processes and Services" incorporates things and activities that manifest as the services provided by an EA practice (maybe like roadmaps and portfolios), and this can be both a blind spot and a big undertaking.
    • Having EA establish a framework and a process provides some consistency and facilitation across all of the service owners, and there is real benefit in doing that.
    • "Architecture Prints" could be things like reference models and tracked patterns, the things that are documented and produced by the Enterprise Architecture Office.  "These are the qualified things that the organization is following."

Organizational Context

  • Here is an example of EA Organizational Engagement for the Operational Excellence EA Archetype (refer to Itana for this, positioning (Ad Hoc, Operational Excellence — Optimizing How IT Works, and Digital Transformation).  This example shows the most-common arrangement, that EA is reporting into the CIO:
  • The goal here is to make sure that the activity and direction of travel in each of the verticals is pulling in a consistent and aligned direction, both within the IT organization (infrastructure, applications, etc) and within the extended IT organization.  It is the EA's job to make sure in this EA Archetype of Operational Excellence that all the pieces are working together as they ought to.
  • In achieving this we have to position EA as bringing together the community of practice across those verticals, to activate architectural thinking, and to identify people who are acting beyond technology-design and into architecture:

Group Work Context

The group was split into separate teams that focused on one or the other of the two topics below, and the outputs were captured in the "Group Work" slide deck linked below.  A summary of the outputs follows below.

EA Practice Activities Needing Governance

These groups highlighted the focus on strategic alignment, organizational structure, process development, and effective communication within the EA practice.

Architecture Activities Needing Governance

These groups emphasized the importance of community engagement, adherence to standards, early and continuous involvement in processes, and alignment with both business and technical goals.  Making sure the EA practice is right.  If the practice is going well then the influence on the enterprise is greater.   The EA practice is where the paycheck comes from.  

Governance Structure

  • Where does skin-in-the-game come from out of senior leadership into the EA practice?
  • What arrangements are needed to ensure that senior people are engaged appropriately at the level of the EA Advisory Board and that there is sufficient meaningful community-of-practice activation and engagement underpinning and testing the architecture in practice?
  • This model above resonates with Henry from NYU.

Governance RACI Chart

  • Teams were assigned to breakout rooms to explore responsibility-matrix assignments for various EA- and EA-adjacent activities.  The exploratory results from these activities were also captured in the Group Work presentation deck.
  • Which activities and artefacts are the most-important, the highest-value, and therefore deserve the time and effort to have the responsibilities assigned and mapped from the perspective of the EA practice?
  • Make sure the practice capabilities are well-enough understood before going too deep into the responsibility matrix!
  • Undertake this work in the context of EA maturity models such as the excellent Itana EAMM-EDU.

Further Information

Slide Decks

Zoom Chat

  • 07:07:51 From jeff kennedy to Everyone: Acknowledging that today has workshop-working components, anybody with Itana wiki access is warmly invited to scribe too here: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/2024-11-01+EA+Practice+Governance+Capability
    07:09:27 From Beth Schaefer to Everyone: Reacted to "Acknowledging that t..." with ❤️
  • 07:15:22 From J.J. DU CHATEAU to Everyone: It'll be interesting to discuss how this applies or can help for those who don't have a defined EA practice and operate more as just a consultant practice.
    07:15:59 From Todd Schaefer to Everyone: Reacted to "It'll be interesting..." with 👍
  • 07:26:22 From jeff kennedy to Everyone: ...that "community of practice" slide reminded me of the Gartner approach (#G00769063) to "democratized architecture" with {platform architecture > team architecture> community architecture} — architects must be architecting the architecture!
  • 07:44:20 From Mary Stevens to Everyone: How do you make governance of the EA practice something that leadership sees as worthy of their time as opposed to just another committee time commitment that is competing for their attention?
    07:51:14 From J.J. DU CHATEAU to Everyone: Reacted to "How do you make gove..." with 👍
  • 07:46:23 From Glenn Donaldson (Ohio State) to Everyone: Same….we are just AB
  • 07:47:06 From Ashish Pandit to Everyone: We call it technology architecture counsel (TAC)
    07:47:23 From A.K. Molteni to Everyone: Reacted to "We call it technolog..." with 😃
    07:47:57 From Beth Schaefer to Everyone: Reacted to "We call it technolog..." with 😃
    07:51:14 From J.J. DU CHATEAU to Everyone: Reacted to "How do you make gove..." with 👍

Participants

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