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Green EA

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human activity has released more than 2 trillion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere since the start of the First Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s.
(Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030, 2020)

Going green is major undertaking for established enterprises. Operations have been in motion for decades without a concern for environmental impact, so how do you begin to have a positive footprint? It starts with viewing sustainability as a strategic issue. Focusing on reducing the risk that affects how, where and with whom you do business. Understanding what business model you and yours partners will follow and how much value will be generated. The core needs are to:

  • Position sustainable solutions to mitigate the operational costs, and reputational and strategic business risks.
  • Identify how to respond to customer requests for environmental performance, life cycle data, and emerging product carbon footprint standards.
  • Take thought leadership in developing sustainable business solutions that enable business models technology architectures.
  • Advance from appealing to early innovators to becoming fully engaged with early mainstream adopters.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) can help leaders get to those core needs. Taking a new, green lens on your state analysis, practitioners can establish viewpoints for an integrated and strategic approach to sustainability. Generating a better understanding of the corporate culture and benefits that sustainability can offer individual lines of business. Specifically, leveraging EA to identify why, how and where within the organization you should engage to effect improved sustainability performance. For instance, understanding the carbon footprint your IT infrastructure has and what solutions are viable to migrate into energy efficient implementations. Project Natick is an innovative example of this, moving data centers underwater to leverage natural resources for computing needs while also providing new customer value with closer data origins.

Green EA is global effort, many public organizations have established standards to help enterprise efforts. It is prudent for EA practitioners to consider these in their governance models and monitor the progress and implementation with solutions to understand the potential impact on your business and supply chain.

References:

What’s your Enterprise’s Blood Type?

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Every enterprise loves a good innovation but it is hard to know when it’s right time to adopt. Risk needs to be evaluated and further more your enterprises readiness needs to be understood. Enterprise architects can assess current state and determine if strategic goals will benefit from the potential product but it is imperative to understand how risks change as a technology progresses through its’ life cycle and its impact to your EA. The first check point is determine what your enterprises risk tolerance is. Are you an early adopter or prefer risk dimensions of the majority? Figures 1 and 2 help to illustrate the different stages of technology against common risk factors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are benefits to each stage regardless of what your tolerance is. Gartner’s Hype Cycle, Figure 3, states that technology is mainstream ready when it reaches the Plateau of Productivity.

So let’s break down how the Hype Cycle maps to a Life Cycle Stage with enterprise blood types:

  • Type A – Innovators and Early Adopters
  • Type B – Majority/Mainstream Adopters
  • Type C – Laggards

The Plateau of Productivity typically signals that at least 20% of Type A’s have adopted. Type B’s usually fall into the “it’s been proven” category and C’s don’t enter the field until required or mandated (both not shown). To this end Type B’s and C need to devote management attention to the financial, people, and technical threats that arise as a technology progresses through its life cycle. Signaling a need for more engaged EA, developing a deeper understanding of line of business capabilities and needs. Unfortunately, Figure 3 doesn’t detail maturity past Type A but in Figure 2 you can see how Type C’s have almost the same risk as extremely early enterprise adopters.

The take away is to leverage EA insights when evaluating new opportunities. Just as EA supports internal decision making, it is a great tool for maintaining competitive advantage. Especially with the rate at which technology is changing.

References:

  • Blechar, M. (2006). Managing Technology Life Cycle Risks. Gartner

How To: Establish a Successful ETA

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Enterprise Technology Architecture (ETA) is much more than standards, it’s a strategy, and adoption is the name of the game. Unfortunately, enterprises often focus too much creating a framework for compliance and not enough on enabling success. A successful ETA is rooted in people and process, fostering a productive and collaborative environment for informed decisions to be made and that enforce business goals.

Gartner outlines 5 best practices to get the most out of your ETA:

Make standards easy to follow

Documentation is key but too much can cause paralysis and/or avoidance. Having an organized destination for knowledge seekers to find information relatable to them and maintaining a minimalist approach to standard creation is necessary to attract compliance. Including examples, or patterns of common tasks in relation to standards will also invite users to your ETA by providing value back to them.

Connect technical architectures to strategic goals

Outcome driven EA should already be the operating model for your practice, so why shouldn’t your ETA? Making strategic direction clear and how a specific initiative enables it, will help drive excitement and make the importance of standards clear when the bigger picture is known.

Start early

The SDLC is complicated beast, getting involved early with technical development provide opportunities for communication and consultation on the use of ETA standards and guidelines. Everyone wants to avoid an ol’fashioned refactor.

Be transparent and forward thinking

Speaking of a complicated beast, old standards frustrate everyone. Be transparent on the direction of ETA and welcome interaction. Just like starting early, if teams have a view to where the enterprise is going they can plan accordingly.

Focus on communication and education

You can’t have adoption with awareness. Share success stories and tailor EA messaging to stakeholders to foster buy-in. Audiences need to be educated on the needs of the enterprise to drive alignment. This also requires standards in itself, have a regular cadence for communications (people are creatures of habit after all) and don’t forget to map back to strategic goals!

These best practices need to happen across domains too. Of course ETA is pointed at the technologists of your organization but enabling business resources to be involved in ETA is the sure fire way to gain adoption across the enterprise.

References:

  • Robertson, B. (2009). Five Best Practices for Enterprise Technology Architecture. Gartner.
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