Enterprise Architecture augments corporate strategy, performance and change management processes

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The purpose of this note is to discuss current challenges with organizational performance and change management processes and highlight how enterprise architecture can fill gaps and further strengthen the corporate strategy to execution alignment processes.

Traditional monitoring of corporate performance against corporate goals has its challenges. Very often it’s difficult to develop confidence that the chosen non-financial indicators reliably indicate future financial performance and hedging on monitoring of “everything” makes long-term analysis more possible but complicates and confuses short-term decision making.

Defining a strategy and setting it in motion and effectively managing complexities to behavior of people, process and technology can be quite daunting. Furthermore, alignment and transition of strategy planning, operations planning, performance and change management and resource allocation can yield undesirable outcomes if not synchronized. These activities must be orchestrated to ensure corporate strategies are clear and enduring; everyone understands where are we going and how they are getting there — all the while maintaining fluid operations and ensuring leaders are equipped with the necessary tools, training, and technologies to help them be successful.

Some recurring issues often seen with traditional corporate strategy, performance and change management process are:

1. Predicting required behavioral changes to people, process and technology: It is difficult to commit to strategic objectives in advance of analyzing behavior changes required
   
2. Alignment and synchronization of people, process and technology: Dashboard metrics and personal objectives do not reflect specific short-term actions required to implement the strategy
   
3. Agility of people, process and technology to sense and respond: Attempts to quickly adjust plans mid-cycle are hampered by slow reaction and resource allocation
   

Enterprise architecture delivers upon the missing feedback loop required to support successful corporate strategy, performance and change management processes.

We often see that operational excellence and successful execution described as the intersection of people, process and technology. Enterprise architects describe the behavioral changes needed to support the future “structure” of these three intersecting domains and address the recurring issues named above:

1. Predicting required behavioral changes to people, process and technology
   
2. Alignment and synchronization of people, process and technology
   
3. Agility of people, process and technology to sense and respond
   

How is this accomplished? Enterprise architects organize the collections of people, process and technology into a common thought space (e.g.one mind one vision) to enable the connection from strategic thinking to business execution.

1. People – how people connect, what are their roles, who is in what position, etc.
   
2. Process – how business operates, what are the primary drivers, the transition from resources to capabilities, etc.
   
3. Technology – Rationalizing technology, visualizing future impact, grasping the risk.

Let’s take an example of a typical corporate strategic planning process.

Step 1:

Corporate Strategic Plan: before cascaded downstream from executives, enterprise architecture prepares FSA and Roadmap, graphically illustrating where we are today, where we need to be and gaps in realizing goals and objectives. The plans are fully described with full clarify of value proposition, products and services and strategic direction in alignment with business objectives. This enables business case development, transition and change from rational business expectations into logical and physical process automation structures.

Step 2:

Alignment and Commitment: Goals from each level of management cascade up and down the management chain to align expectations with a perspective of people who will execute against targets. Enterprise architects describe the integration of people, process and technology to drive change and build consensus. They do this through describing perspectives of from various view points and concerns are all core competencies of an enterprise architect. The perspectives are as follows.

• Business Process and People
  
• Information as a service
  
• Integration of people, process, technology
• Security , risk and impact

Step 3:

Trade off identification: Transformation of opportunity to execution is conducted through transparent oversight of investments. Funded projects are reviewed and approved by the enterprise architecture solution board. The rationale for transparency is driven by the need to determine whether an investment meets all risk and return criteria.

Step 4:

Reprioritization: Resource allocation and budgets are re-forecasted and revised on a quarterly basis. Performance measures are updated to reflect missed initiatives and non performing activities. Enterprise architects produce risk and impact reports in a timely manner; that is assess, define, mitigate and communicate architectural and technology risks and impacts

Enterprise architects deliver upon the feedback loop which is missing from traditional corporate strategy, performance and change management process and enable the design and implementation of the structures that link an organization’s strategy with its execution. Enterprise Architects use specialized practices to determine where the company is today, scenarios for where it will be tomorrow, and they provide roadmaps that lead from one stage in the journey to the next.

Through awareness and communication, business will recognize the direct correlation of pain points and the evolutionary path which strengthens and compliments traditional strategic, organizational performance and change management processes. The message still stands true, use enterprise architecture as a strategic differentiator to describe the transformational set of changes required by people, process and technology and of course nurturing them into capabilities that produce desired results.