Issue 4

This article builds on the capability of enterprise architectures (EAs) to define the organization’s systems development environment but places special emphasis on their power as communication tools. The concept of Organizational Self-Awareness (OSA) is offered as the contextual framework for the discussion. OSA is a process which involves, firstly, the efforts of the individual organizational member in getting to know his/her work environment, through sense-making. Sense-making is influenced by a number of factors, some related to the individual’s psychological makeup, others related to the individual’s work environment. EAs can play a relevant role in sense-making. From activity theory the article highlights the process of consciousness formation in human beings as well as the mediating artifacts that shape an constrain the acquisition, accumulation and development of knowledge and self-knowledge. Among the many mediating artifacts in the work environment EAs are a special type. EAs are also boundary objects due to their organizational sense-making. The article concludes that the design and use of EAs can play a crucial role in the formation of a collective mind about the state of the organizational processes and therefore about the state of the organization.

Today’s organizations are changing with respect to both structure and internal working processes. As a consequence of tends such as globalization, deregulation and highly volatile markets, corporations are forced to increase their responsiveness to temporary requirements or business opportunities. Most existing organizational theories do not apply to the emerging sort of enterprise which incorporates principles such as structural decentralization, loose coupling of autonomously acting business units as well as complexity hiding on the basis of uniform interfaces. This work briefly elaborates on the concept of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) in the field of information technology and proposes a first approach to mapping its major underlying principles to upcoming forms of organizations. We present a model of the Service-Oriented Enterprise (SOE) and leverage use cases of existing companies as well as recent theoretical approaches to demonstrate the analogy between state-of-the-art paradigms in the fields of both technology and organizational theory.

One of the greatest challenges that large, complex enterprises face is to develop a way to holistically see themselves as they currently are and as they want to be in the future. It is valuable for large, complex enterprises to be able to do this so they can optimize the use of current resources in accomplishing strategic goals and line-of-business objectives, as well as being able to model and analyze alternative future states that will improve agility and competitiveness. This article proposes that enterprise architecture (EA) is an effective way to develop current and future views of the entire enterprise, or parts of the enterprise, on an ongoing basis. EA does this primarily by integrating the processes for strategic, business, and technology planning in a way that also integrates with other business and technology governance processes (e.g., capital planning, program management, risk management, security, and workforce planning). EA also provides a detailed, repeatable, and scalable methodology for documentation and analysis that utilizes an organizing framework, documentation artifacts, a repository, and best practices. The EA3 Cube Framework™ and the “Living Enterprise™” repository (developed by the author in 2003) will be used to discuss how EA works and how it integrates with other areas of governance. The role of theory in grounding governance and best practices is discussed, and the “Organization Network Model” is introduced as a model of how modern organizations often function and as the underpinning of the EA3 Cube Framework. The article concludes by observing that EA is unique among existing management practices in that it provides a way to abstract and understand large, complex enterprises in their entirety, and is increasing being used on a global basis in the public and private sectors to support planning and decision-making at the executive, management, and staff levels of the enterprise, as well as to guide the selection and implementation of projects to achieve strategic and tactical goals.

During the past few years, enterprise architectures (EAs) have garnered considerable attention from both practitioners and academics in the fields of information systems and business management. It is suggested that EA is an approach for controlling the complexity and constant changes in the business environment of an organization. Research has mainly focused on the development and modeling of EA, while quality aspects of EA have gained less attention. The aim of this study is to provide insight into the critical success factors for EA representing issues that have to be done exceedingly well in order to achieve a high-quality EA, which in turn, enables business to gain more success.

Though it is largely an abstract concept, enterprise architecture (EA) has shaped, is shaping, and will continue to shape information technology. This four-part article traces the author’s observations and predictions about the current and future state of information technology, and the role that EA will play in that evolution. Part 2 of the series focuses on the emerging concept of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) during the next five years. EA provides context for SOA, just as it does for other types of information technology solution architectures. SOA focuses on constructing agile enterprises that align information technology with organizational processes, goals, and strategies, as well as helping to ensure the organization’s success in a constantly changing economic and political environment.