In my experiences, Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) tends to be a massively overlooked discipline. Most organizations I work with have different tiers of data architects, all aligned differently and developing differently. I often find organizations with silo’d standards and information models, regardless if there is a mature enterprise architecture in place. This fragmented EIA costs the organization money. Creating inefficiencies, redundancies, and inhibiting business strategies.
Often times this is a product of organizational growth that requires significant effort to right the ship, especially with large enterprises, but there are still opportunities for positive change. Focusing on creating a sharing environment, increases the value that can derived from information. With a collaborative data culture, information is shared among those who have it and those who need it (Newman & Gall, 2009). Allowing lines of business to integrate with one another; reminiscent of the benefits of InnerSourcing. Of course scope still needs to be maintained with principles of governance and structure, but advanced data sharing capabilities as part of a unified EIA will allow organizations to exploit information as a strategic asset and not just a by-product.
Here is a helpful guide for architecting information shareability:
(Gartner for IT Leaders Toolkit: How to Develop an Enterprise Information Architecture)
References:
- Newman, D. (2011) Overcoming Silos: Evolving From Stand-Alone Information Architectures to Shared Information Architectures for the Emerging Data Economy. Gartner
- Newman, D. & Gall, N. (2009) Architecting for Participation: How Information Sharing Environments Overcome Information Silos. Gartner.
- Newman, D. Gall, N. & Lapkin, A. (2008)Gartner Defines Enterprise Information Architecture. Gartner.
Great points!
The experience I have is people are stuck not necessarily in a silo per-say but in a matured enterprise architecture and are stuck there for multiple reasons. It could be because a 3rd party vendor has not leveraged the new types of architecture, or the existing resources are unable to dedicate the time needed to shift to the new emerging disruptive technology that exists as they’re buried under the ‘operational’ load of keeping the current applications running.
However, the points you make around influencing culture are true and that is where I’ve had the most success in organizational shifts toward migrating from the legacy architecture to more efficient methods that newer technology and cloud services helps provide.