Digital disruption has had a major impact on the role of Enterprise Architect’s. The rapid change that industries, technology, and business requirements have undergone over the last 5 years has created a need for enterprise architects to focus on leading digital innovation in additional to the foundational and vanguard roles of enterprise architecture (EA). In 2016 Gartner advised that enterprise architects prepare for the following trends:
- Business Architecture
- Ecosystems
- Digital Business
- Human Centered Design
- Platforms
- Economics
- Business Outcome Driven EA
4 years later, in Gartner’s 2019 report, digital disruption has distilled these trends into:
- Continued demand for digital transformation
- Design and implementation of digital platforms
- Increasing role of information as an asset
Which when analyzed support the technological innovation that has occurred but still embody the needs of 2016’s categories. Overall, enterprise architects need to support their organizations by:
- Driving the innovation process by leading opportunities from ideation to realization
- Evolving EA practices for the agile, digital world taking into account human-centered design
- Being change agents across enterprise layers, introducing new practices and merging architecture domains
- Evangelize industry trends and emerging technologies with a focus on business architecture
I look forward to seeing how EA frameworks and tooling evolve to meet these needs and strive in a data driven world.
References:
- Santos, J. & Allega, P. (2019) Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture, 2019
- Burton, B. Burke, B. Blosch, M. (2016) Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture, 2016