A Modern Enterprise Architecture Approach E-Book

Dr Mehmet Yildiz

• Herausgeber: Dr Mehmet Yildiz
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The revised version of this book provides essential guidance, compelling ideas, and unique ways to Enterprise Architects so that they can successfully perform complex enterprise modernisation initiatives transforming from chaos to coherence. This is not an ordinary theory book describing Enterprise Architecture in detail. There are myriad of books on the market and in libraries discussing details of enterprise architecture. My aim here is to highlight success factors and reflect lessons learnt from the field within enterprise modernisation and transformation context.
As a practising Senior Enterprise Architect, myself, I read hundreds of those books and articles to learn different views. They have been valuable to me to establish my foundations in the earlier phase of my profession. However, what is missing now is a concise guidance book showing Enterprise Architects the novel approaches, insights from the real-life experience and experimentations, and pointing out the differentiating technologies for enterprise modernisation. If only there were such a guide when I started engaging in modernisation and transformation programs.
The biggest lesson learned is the business outcome of the enterprise modernisation. What genuinely matters for business is the return on investment of the enterprise architecture and its monetising capabilities. The rest is the theory because nowadays sponsoring executives, due to economic climate, have no interest, attention, or tolerance for non-profitable ventures. I am sorry for disappointing some idealistic Enterprise Architects, but with due respect, it is the reality, and we cannot change it. This book deals with reality rather than theoretical perfection. Anyone against this view on this climate must be coming from another planet.
In this concise, uncluttered and easy-to-read book, I attempt to show the significant pain points and valuable considerations for enterprise modernisation using a structured approach and a simple narration especially considering my audience from non-English speaking backgrounds.
The architectural rigour is still essential. We cannot compromise the rigour aiming to the quality of products and services as a target outcome. However, there must be a delicate balance among architectural rigour, business value, and speed to the market.
I applied this pragmatic approach to multiple substantial transformation initiatives and complex modernisations programs. The key point is using an incrementally progressing iterative approach to every aspect of modernisation initiatives, including people, processes, tools, and technologies as a whole.
Starting with a high-level view of enterprise architecture to set the context, I provided a dozen of distinct chapters to point out and elaborate on the factors which can make a real difference in dealing with complexity and producing excellent modernisation initiatives.
As eminent leaders, Enterprise Architects are the critical talents who can undertake this massive mission using their people and technology skills, in addition to many critical attributes such as calm and composed approach.
Let’s keep in mind that as Enterprise Architects, we are architects, not firefighters! I have full confidence that this book can provide valuable insights and some ‘aha’ moments for talented architects like yourself to tackle this enormous mission of turning chaos to coherence.

Leseprobe

A Modern Enterprise Architecture Approach

Transform enterprise with pragmatic architecture using mobility, IoT, Big Data, Cloud (Revised Edition)

––––––––

Dr Mehmet Yildiz

Distinguished Enterprise Architect

Third Edition, October 2019

Copyright © Dr Mehmet Yildiz

Contact Author at https://digitalmehmet.com

Publisher: S.T.E.P.S. Publishing Australia

P.O Box 2097, Roxburgh Park, Victoria, 3064 Australia

[email protected]

Edited by Mark Longfield

Disclaimer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, printing, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This book is provided for information purposes only. Although the publisher, author, and editors have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was accurate and correct during the publishing process, the publisher, author and editors do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions; whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other causes. Use of the information, instructions, and guidance contained in this book is at readers own risk.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

Purpose of this book

Audience

Lessons Learned from my Background

Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Enterprise Architecture

Defining Enterprise Architecture

Managing Enterprise Complexity

Enterprise Solutions Cost

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 3: An Overview of Enterprise Modernisation

Purpose

Modernisation Scope

Modernisation Strategy

Modernisation Roadmap

Modernisation Viability Assessment

Modernisation Requirements

Modernisation Use Cases

Architectural Trade-offs

Reference Architectures

High-Level Designs and Models

Detailed Designs and Specifications

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 4: Redefining Roles & Responsibilities of Enterprise Architects for Modern World

Purpose

Architecture and Design Responsibilities for Modernisation Lifecycle

Dynamic and Flexible Governance

Technical Distinction

Business and Technical Communication

Innovation and Invention Catalyst

Mentoring and Coaching

Becoming a Change Catalyst

New Way of Learning for Modernisation

Talent Protection and Support

Maintaining High-Performance Teams

Blind Spots Detectors

Measurement Experts

Thought Leadership

Outcome Creator

Our Professional Background May Matter

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 5: Innovative Agility & Fusion for Modern Enterprise

Definition of Innovation

Innovative Thinking

Innovation Culture and Ecosystem

Ignite Innovation in Modernising Enterprise

Innovation as a Mindset

Recognising Hurdles for Innovation

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 6: Simplifying Everything for Modern Enterprise

Purpose of Simplicity

Meaning of Simplicity

Process Simplicity

Service Simplicity

Design Simplicity for Modernisation

Simplicity of Specifications

Simplicity in Technical Communication

Governance Simplicity for Modernisation

More Data for Simplicity

Simplified Presentations for Effectiveness

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 7:  Agility for Modern Enterprise

How to Communicate Agility

Practical Guidance to Maintain Agility

Pragmatic Architecture

Rapid Development

Importance of Automation for Agility

Remove Silos

Manage our Backlogs Effectively

Embrace Change and Uncertainty

Fail Fast

Cost and Revenue Balance in Agility

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 8: Smart Collaboration and Fusion for Modern Enterprise

What is Smart Collaboration

Creating a Culture of Fusion

Spark Fusion and Smart Collaboration

Creating a Sustained Fusion Culture

Create an Enchanted Fusion

Influence and Credibility

Diversifying our Modernisation Teams

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 9: Vital Technology Enablers for Modern Enterprise

Purpose of This Chapter

Cloud Computing

IoT (Internet of Things)

Big Data, Analytics & Machine Learning

Machine Learning & Text Analytics

Cybersecurity

Blockchain for New Security Requirements

Enterprise Network

Enterprise Mobility

Enterprise IT Service Management

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 10: Cloud Computing for Enterprise Modernisation

Importance of Cloud for Modernisation

Cloud Service Model

Cloud Deployment Models for Modernisation

Public Cloud Model

Private Cloud Model

Hybrid Cloud Model

Community Cloud Model

Multi-Cloud Model

Hybrid Cloud as Enterprise Focus

Smart Cost Model

Cloud Optimisation Activities

Enterprise Workload Management

Cloud Microservices

Cloud, Big Data and IoT Relationship

Cloud Quality and Adoption for Big Data

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 11: Big Data and Analytics for Enterprise Modernisation

Big Data Lifecycle Management

Phase 1: Foundations

Phase 2: Data Acquisition

Phase 3: Data Preparation

Phase 4: Data Input and Access

Phase 5: Data Processing

Phase 6: Data Output and Interpretation

Phase 7: Data Storage

Phase 8: Data Integration

Phase 9: Data Analytics

Phase 10: Data Consumption

Phase 11: Retention, Backup, and Archival

Phase 12: Data Destruction

Data Principles

Data Quality Specifications

Big Data Platform

Business Vocabulary

Big Data Governance

Business Thinking for Big Data Architecture

Big Data Analytics

Open-Source Big Data Tools as Candidate for Enterprise Modernisation

Hadoop

Cassandra

Kafka

Flume

NiFi

Samza

Sqoop

Chukwa

Storm

Spark

Hive

HBase

MongoDB and RocksDB

Commercial Big Data and Analytics Tools

Decision Management System

Data Lakes, Ponds, Puddles and Swamps

Data Warehouse

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 12: IoT for Enterprise Modernisation

IoT Value Propositions

Architectural Implications IoT

IoT Cloud for Enterprise Modernisation

Implications of IoT Analytics Computation

Considering Data Lakes for Enterprise IoT

IoT Architectural Challenges for Enterprise

IoT Security and Privacy Concerns

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 13: Enterprise Mobility

Purpose

Mobility Device Management

Enterprise Security Implications for Mobility

Mobile Business Intelligence

Unified Endpoint Management

Mobility for Enterprise Modernisation

Architectural Concerns for Enterprise Mobility

Chapter Summary and Key Points

Chapter 14: Conclusions

Appendix: Other Books in this Series

Architecting Digital Transformation

Digital Intelligence

A Practical Guide for IoT Solution Architects

Architecting secure, agile, economic, highly available, well-performing IoT ecosystems

Architecting Big Data Solutions Integrated with IoT & Cloud

Create strategic business insights with agility

A Technical Excellence Framework for Innovative Digital Transformation Leadership

Transform enterprise with technical excellence, innovation, simplicity, agility, fusion, and collaboration

About the Author

Chapter 1: Introduction

Purpose of this book

The revised version of this book to provide essential guidance, compelling ideas, and unique ways to Enterprise Architects so that they can successfully perform complex enterprise modernisation initiatives transforming from chaos to coherence. This is not an ordinary theory book describing Enterprise Architecture in detail. There are myriad of books on the market and in libraries discussing details of enterprise architecture. My aim here is to highlight success factors and reflect lessons learnt from the field within enterprise modernisation and transformation context.

As a practising Senior Enterprise Architect, myself, I read hundreds of those books and articles to learn different views. They have been valuable to me to establish my foundations in the earlier phase of my profession. However, what is missing now is a concise guidance book showing Enterprise Architects the novel approaches, insights from the real-life experience and experimentations, and pointing out the differentiating technologies for enterprise modernisation. If only there were such a guide when I started engaging in modernisation and transformation programs.

The biggest lesson learned is the business outcome of the enterprise modernisation. What genuinely matters for business is the return on investment of the enterprise architecture and its monetising capabilities. The rest is the theory because nowadays sponsoring executives, due to economic climate, have no interest, attention, or tolerance for non-profitable ventures. I am sorry for disappointing some idealistic Enterprise Architects, but with due respect, it is the reality, and we cannot change it. This book deals with reality rather than theoretical perfection. Anyone against this view on this climate must be coming from another planet.

In this concise, uncluttered and easy-to-read book, I attempt to show the significant pain points and valuable considerations for enterprise modernisation using a structured approach and a simple narration especially considering my audience from non-English speaking backgrounds.

The architectural rigour is still essential. We cannot compromise the rigour aiming to the quality of products and services as a target outcome. However, there must be a delicate balance among architectural rigour, business value, and speed to the market.

I applied this pragmatic approach to multiple substantial transformation initiatives and complex modernisations programs. The key point is using an incrementally progressing iterative approach to every aspect of modernisation initiatives, including people, processes, tools, and technologies as a whole.

Starting with a high-level view of enterprise architecture to set the context, I provided a dozen of distinct chapters to point out and elaborate on the factors which can make a real difference in dealing with complexity and producing excellent modernisation initiatives.

As eminent leaders, Enterprise Architects are the critical talents who can undertake this massive mission using their people and technology skills, in addition to many critical attributes such as calm and composed approach.

Let’s keep in mind that as Enterprise Architects, we are architects, not firefighters! I have full confidence that this book can provide valuable insights and some ‘aha’ moments for talented architects like yourself to tackle this enormous mission of turning chaos to coherence.

Audience

This book can be an ideal supplementary source for Enterprise Architects who engage in enormous enterprise modernisation and transformation initiatives as the first time. The guidance in this book can jump-start the process.  

Another target audience type could be IT architects who are planning to be Enterprise Architects and to undertake transformation and modernisation initiatives in complex environments and large organisations.

In addition to architects, this book can provide useful insights to IT executives like - CTOs (Chief Technology Officer), CDOs (Chief Digital Officer), CIOs (Chief Information Officer), and Head of Enterprise Technologies - who are responsible for substantial enterprise modernisation and digital transformation programs.

From an execution perspective, this book can be also helpful for the program managers and portfolio directors responsible for enterprise modernisation and transformation programs.

As a supplementary educative resource, this book can also be useful for students studying Enterprise Architecture and relevant disciplines who want to understand the practical aspect of the discipline, especially from the modernisation and transformation perspectives.

Lessons Learned from my Background

I have been practising enterprise architecture over two decades. Large organisations are substantially challenged with rapid change in technology and increasing demands of consumers. Every large organisation that I worked for had some transformation and modernisation programs to some extent at the enterprise level.

I witnessed several failed initiatives caused by multiple factors which could be in their control to some extent or beyond their control. One of the major causes of the failure was difficulty in dealing with complexity. Enterprises have multiple dimensions spanning to many domains with a multitude of stakeholders with overlapping or conflicting interests. These domains are tightly interrelated; hence, a minor issue or conflict with one domain can be reflected in many others.

For example, in a typical large organisation, just strategy and planning phase took over a year while hundreds of highly paid employees were churning and debating the ideas extensively. Once the program finally reached a consensus on the scope and approached the requirements management phase, the entire budget for the program was consumed.  The organisation had to make all those talented people redundant.

This typical and unfortunate example was a valuable lesson learned on how important to approach the modernisation iteratively rather than trying to perfect everything upfront. From hindsight, they could have set the strategy at a high level for a single domain and only plan one aspect of the strategy in the selected domain, tested it with the allocated budget, and produced some desirable results.

The other reasons for failure are too much focus on technologies which were challenging to implement at enterprise-wide due to inhibitive cost, lack of required functionality, and capabilities perspectives. For example, while an organisation could have started testing the Cloud with a cheap public Cloud offering and moved their workloads iteratively, they were trying to build a full-fledged private Cloud platform with many emerging technologies and expensive gear. The hidden cost in such a monolithic approach, unfortunately, destroyed all good intentions.

There are many more similar lessons learned from failure; therefore, I want to share my experience how these deadly errors can be prevented with a different mindset, novel approach, an innovative structure, and with use of supportive tools, and empowering technologies. Simplicity and agility must be the two powerful tools in our pocket.

Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Enterprise Architecture

Purpose

In this chapter, we cover the fundamentals of enterprise architecture briefly so that we all think on the same page. In any business venture, principally, fundamentals must be met first so that further progress can proceed.

For this reason, we start with the definition of enterprise architecture within the modernisation and transformation context and introduce the fundamental techniques to deal with enterprise complexity.

In consecutive chapters, as another fundamental aspect, we touch on the changing and essential roles and responsibilities of Enterprise Architects for leading successful modernisation and transformation initiatives.

After setting these fundamentals, we highlight other necessary pillars in this novel framework. Now, let’s attempt to define enterprise architecture in our context.

Defining Enterprise Architecture

The Enterprise Architecture (EA) discipline in Information Technology (IT) defines a macro level IT architecture at the enterprise level focusing on the mapping of IT capabilities to business needs using a governance method.

Traditionally, thought leaders used the town planning metaphor to define and visualise EA. So far, this town planning metaphor is the most prominent explanation to provide a common understanding of EA.  Therefore, now and then in this book, we use this metaphor to convey the message and clarify the abstract points.

The focus of EA has been defining and describing the relationships, logical flows, implementation of business processes, activities, functions, data, information, applications, security, compliance, underlying technology stacks, and supportive tools in the enterprise. 

Vision, process, and planning are the critical aspects of EA. These three significant aspects – vision, process, and planning- are driven by and closely aligned with business needs, capability, and requirements at the enterprise level.

EA has five distinct phases.  The phases in order of maturity are initial, baseline, target, integrated, and optimised. Enterprise modernisation initiatives must consider these phases and deal with them both individually and in an integrated manner. Our goal is to reach the optimised level realistically and in an iterative way.

EA has several reference models to explain its fundamental domains. These reference models are guiding documents and can help us understand each domain at least at a high level.

The most common models are BRM (Business Reference Model), CRM (The Components Reference Model), TRM (The Technical Reference Model), DRM (The Data Reference Model), PRM (Performance Reference Model).

These models cover business capability, business functionality, technology standards, IT systems, data descriptions, and quality measurements. These models are well-established. For example, one of the most common EA methods, FEA (Federal Enterprise Architecture), also uses these models. These models can be viewed from Enterprise Architecture textbooks and establish method artefacts’ in your organisations. Due to the limited scope of this book, we cannot go into the details of these basic models.

There are many traditional methods for Enterprise Architecture. The popular ones are TOGAF, Zachman, and FEA. Some large organisations have their established proprietary methodologies which are used only for internal purposes and not shared publicly.

However, knowing an established method and understanding the principles of enterprise architecture in a broad sense, Enterprise Architects can quickly learn other proprietary methods by reviewing them and working with the actual work-products in a relatively short time.

Managing Enterprise Complexity

Enterprise environments can be extremely complex with multiple layers of systems, technologies, tools and processes. One of the critical roles of Enterprise Architects is to manage complexity. There are different approaches and techniques to manage complexity in enterprises.

The most common simplification technique is the partitioning approach. Some Enterprise Architects may use different terms for partitioning such as dividing, subdividing, segregating, and apportioning. These alternative terms all mean the same thing.

The process of partitioning refers to making smaller parts of a large object. Let’s say that we are dealing with a network system. We partition the overall network to smaller groups such as a wide-area network or a local-area network. We can partition the wide-area network from tools perspectives such as routers, switches and other devices.  Dealing with smaller parts can be more comfortable, faster, and more economical.

Once we partition an overarching system to smaller components, then we can start simplifying each component to deal with embedded complexity in the specific component.

Simplification is a broad technique which can be applied to different objects and circumstances. We can customise the process of simplification for different systems and activities by understanding its nature, function, purpose, and relationships.

One effective way of simplifying a system is reducing the quantity. Take the number of servers, for example, looking at a thousand units of servers, and ten servers can make a massive difference.

Another technique could be moving an item from a large group of the clustered items but still, keep the relationship to keep its core identity. Due to importance of simplicity, this book offers an entire chapter on the importance of simplification and simplifying various aspects of the architecture for enterprise modernisation Simplification is a critical factor for change.

After partitioning and simplifying the third critical method is iterating. Probably you heard a lot about this term while working with agile methods. Iteration is progressing activities in smaller steps and chunks. Iteration is one of the best approaches to deal with complexity and uncertainty.

Moving with iterative steps, we achieve some tangible results. If the result is positive, we make progress for our goal and go to the next iteration. If the result is negative, we fail but learn how not to do it and try another iteration.

Paradoxically, the positive side of this negative result is that we fail cheap, and we fail quickly, as touted by many wise entrepreneurs.  Failing cheap and quickly don’t make a significant negative difference from a financial and project schedule perspective. As iteration or iterative approach is so critical in enterprise modernisation, this book offers a chapter on Agile methods and approach for successful modernisation initiatives.

In summary, we can remember these three basic methods using daily examples such as we have separate teams for different functions at work; this is partitioning of teams. We only belong to a single nation; this is a simplification. We plan for a school or certification exam chapter by chapter; this is iteration. There are also different tools that we use for these techniques. In various chapters of this book, we will cover and unfold them.

Enterprise Solutions Cost

Every item in enterprise modernisations and transformation activities generates substantial cost. There are known and hidden costs.

It is relatively more comfortable to deal with the known costs; however, the challenge is to deal with the hidden costs. Hidden costs are the more substantial part of the iceberg.  

Even though the cost of projects is managed by project managers and financial teams, Enterprise Architects are expected and need to find ways to make enterprise modernisation solutions inexpensive, affordable and lowering the cost gradually without compromising quality. Quality considerations are the critical requirements of enterprise modernisation initiatives.

There is a common perception that making solutions cost-effective without compromising quality is not possible as a considerable number of trade-offs are made in the architecture development phase. It is true that there are many challenges and factors to be considered to achieve this goal.

However, the solution cost can be reduced by making trade-offs with a methodical approach by obtaining collaborative input from business and technology departments. We can also use the Agile approach appropriately. It is possible to increase the quality of the solutions by applying professional diligence, architectural rigour, delivery agility, and smart collaboration. These principle-based approaches are critical to maintain and increase quality.

Enterprise Architects need to participate in cost model development proactively. For example, we must develop a solution Bill of Materials (BOM) once we set the solution strategy and complete all high-level design artefacts. The BOM may include hardware, software, other procurement, and services costs. This BOM can provide useful insights into the funding and sponsoring executives about the cost of our initiatives; however, other stakeholders want to use this BOM for different purposes.

For example, there may be tremendous pressure from project managers and procurement staff to generate an upfront BOM to meet the project deadlines. No one wants to get blamed for any delay in an organisation; hence, there may be a huge rush to get things in place quickly. However, we can point out that without an approved architecture, no BOM can be formalised and released. This assertive and straightforward input from the Enterprise Architects can save a considerable amount of funds to the enterprise modernisation programs or save wasting well controlled and tight budgets.

There are extensive infrastructure and maintenance costs in the enterprise associated with large data centres, server farms, IoT devices, Mobile BI, Big Data, and hybrid Clouds services. These foundational infrastructure components can make enterprise solutions more viable from a cost perspective. However, a single failure or defect in a device or a group of devices serving the consumers can affect the service levels hence could lead to high costs for the service providers.

Availability and performance of the systems are the significant factors to consider for punitive service levels. Automated SLAs can detect low availability and poor performance.  These automated SLAs trigger the rules and force the organisations breaching the agreements pay the contractually agreed penalties. The downtime is the most critical factor for generating excessive penalties. The longer the systems are down, the higher the penalties can be.

Service downtime costs can be very high based on agreed rates and cause excessive penalties when accumulated for service-level breaches by organisations. Service Level breaches also have a strategic adverse effect on an organisation’s product and services.

For example, downtimes in services or defects in products can result in poor client satisfaction. If we also look at from the consumer perspectives, they may lose business due to service downtimes. Most of the time, it is a lose-lose scenario even though the consumer organisations are compensated with SLA penalties paid by the service providers.

As Enterprise Architects, we need to pay attention to the SLAs from the early stages of the modernisation solution life cycle. Principally, the higher the quality of the solutions, the easier it is for SLAs to meet when the solutions are in production and the operational state. The rigour for quality in each phase can positively contribute to deal with SLA risks.

Some of the key considerations to address SLA issues could be autonomous condition monitoring and remote maintenance. There are specialist solutions regarding these trending techniques. It can be useful to engage automation specialists for the design of these unique features in our modernisation solutions.

Service level management is crucial in enterprise modernisation initiatives as one of the biggest fears of the business executives is performance and availability problems may damage their organisations’ client satisfaction and compromise essential business revenues. To address the risks associated with this valid business fear, Enterprise Architects need to pay special attention to SLA strategy, planning, design and implementation at every phase of the architecture in an integrated way. Now let’s review the key points we learned from this chapter.

Chapter Summary and Key Points

The Enterprise Architecture discipline in Information Technology defines a macro level IT architecture at the enterprise level focusing on the mapping of IT capabilities to business needs using a governance method.

The focus of EA has been defining and describing the relationships, logical flows, implementation of business processes, activities, functions, data, information, applications, underlying technology, and supportive tools in the enterprise. 

The EA has five distinct phases.  The phases in order of maturity are initial, baseline, target, integrated, and optimised. Enterprise modernisation initiatives must consider these phases and deal with them both individually and in an integrated manner.

The most common models are Business Reference Model, The Components Reference Model, The Technical Reference Model, The Data Reference Model and the Performance Reference Model.

The most common simplification technique is the partitioning approach. Another way of simplifying a system is reducing the quantity. After partitioning and simplifying the third critical method is iterating.

Everything in enterprise transformation generates substantial cost. There are known and hidden costs. It is relatively more comfortable to deal with the known costs; however, the challenge is to deal with the hidden costs.

Enterprise Architects need to pay attention to the SLAs from the early stages of the modernisation solution life cycle. The higher the quality of the solutions, the easier it is for SLAs to meet when the solutions are in production and the operational state.

Chapter 3: An Overview of Enterprise Modernisation

Purpose

The purpose of this section is to provide high-level guidance on the steps to be taken in the enterprise modernisation programs which could serve as a generic checklist.

These steps are based on some of my recent projects which posed substantial challenges from multiple angles; therefore, I attempt to highlight the problem areas so that you can consider them for your unique initiatives which may resemble mine.

Since you are an experienced Enterprise Architect, I won't delve into details of how to perform general architectural tasks, instead focus on the critical items that really make a real difference for success.

Modernisation Scope

Enterprise modernisation is a long journey moving the enterprise from chaos to coherence. The modernisation process includes every aspect of the enterprise. Modernisation scope can be massive if we don’t apply architectural discipline to it. Modernisation initiatives lead to transformation.

Business stakeholders can be very ambitious and ask many functions, features, updates, or modernise too many things in a single move with their good intentions. They may even expect to conduct complete transformation without understanding the technical and financial challenges. However, their ambitious intention cannot match reality.

As Enterprise Architects, we need to reflect the reality using some estimates for resourcing and timelines leveraging the skills of project, program, and financial managers. Providing an indicative cost model and a single page Gantt chart can represent reality and communicate the situation clearly. We need to practice this executive skill regularly.

After understanding the scope of enterprise modernisation and have an idea about the predictive cost, we need to define the modernisation scope using architectural principles and guidelines.

There may be a various aspect of the modernisation; hence, in this book, we focus on the enterprise IT systems. Even though enterprise IT systems look only a tiny bit of an organisation in overarching enterprise, this domain by itself can be gigantic, especially for the large organisations. To this end, setting stakeholder expectations can be critical.

Enterprise IT systems include business IT processes, business data, business applications, IT infrastructure, IT development, IT support, and IT service delivery. These domains can even be more complicated with the addition of geographical factors such as adding multiple countries to the equation. The good news is that these primary domains can be modernised iteratively in parallel. This is where simplicity and agility come to our rescue.

Both a top-down and bottom-up approach can be applied. At the top tier business, IT processes and at the bottom tier IT infrastructure. These two domains can independently be modernised using parallel activities. However, an integrated approach is essential as there can always be dependencies and interdependencies from multiple angles.

Depending on the organisation’s size and complexity, the modernisation scope can be enormous. To give you some ideas and guidance, some of the modernisation programs I worked included Workplace, Hosting, Network, Communications, Business Applications, Infrastructure Tools, Workload Management, Middleware, Web Services, Databases, Data Platforms, Helpdesk, and Legacy Backend.

When you join these initiatives, it can be a mammoth program. Therefore, in the scope formulation phase, we need to be realistic by removing any emotions and set the expectations based on logical and measurable estimates.

Once the modernisation scope and strategy are set by the team, Enterprise Architects refine the strategy and convert it to the architectural speak. The scope document is usually defined by the program managers and refined by Enterprise Architects.

Modernisation Strategy

From an architectural point of view, the strategy document is a critical artefact to bring all parties and stakeholders on the same page. In our strategy artefact, we need to identify the critical dependencies among multiple domains in the approved scope based on the short term, midterm, and long-term considerations.

The solution strategy process provides an objective assessment of the current situation. It aligns the program goals with the organisational goals at the enterprise level and ensures that all gaps are covered. The solution strategy artefact also documents the opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses of the project from the technical, commercial and financial angles.

We know that the strategy of solutions hardly changes in the later phases of the solution process. Therefore, it must be understood, agreed, and approved at the earlier phases. However, we can make our strategy flexible by creating changeable tactics to empower our solution strategy. These tactics can also be documented and approved as part of the solution architecture approval process. Tactics may include changes in technology, choosing a different set of tools, or re-defining the process and procedures.

By using the approved strategy artefact and considering the identified dependencies, we develop an indicative high-level roadmap to inform the sponsoring executives for our modernisation goals. Let’s discuss the critical points for modernisation roadmap so that we can develop an effective one to achieve our modernisation goals.

Modernisation Roadmap

Modernisation roadmap can include the current state at a high level, the future state, primary transformational goals, and indicate the key outcomes, timelines, and a ballpark (order of magnitude) cost for the overall modernisation program. These indications can be very high level at this stage as there may be many factors affecting timelines and cost.

Once the roadmap for the enterprise modernisation is set, as Enterprise Architects, we need to make a comprehensive viability assessment considering the current state of the in-scope initiatives, their indicative future state, and the strategies to reach the end state.

The Viability Assessment is a crucial artefact. This artefact can help our modernisation roadmap to be validated by multiple stakeholders and team members, including technical specialists, program managers, and financial managers. Viability Assessment is also a critical document that the sponsoring executives consult to approve our modernisation roadmap. Now, let’s touch on the key points to prepare a modernisation Viability Assessment.