The Beloved Enterprise Architect's Journey to the C-Corridor

An EA roadmap, to my simplified mind, is akin to a circuit-breaker map.  Nobody really cares where that map is.  That is -- until the lights go out, or you want to expand the circuitry.  When things need fixing, and everyone is groping in the dark, THEN they yell "Where's the map-maker"?

Mike Rollins paper (Enterprise Architecture is More than Engineering, 2008), in the section "When EA isn't working", creates a lot of empathy for the enterprise architect. I myself come from a more project management role, and understand why the project team feels sad when they see that the architect, enterprise or domain-specific, is at a loss and therefore vaguely useful.

Moreover, as an analogy useful to my mind, I imagine that an enterprise architect is like a jungle guide. When the jungle to be traversed is fairly small and familiar, the expedition might choose to say "We don't need a guide...  this is simple enough." And thus, in certain organizations, the EA team -- if ever they were created as such,  can sometimes feel unloved, under-utilized and under-appreciated. However, when the jungle is fairly complex -- markedly so when earlier attempts to cross without a guide has failed, then the expedition grows wise with a more mature decision-frame, and can now see the true value of the jungle guide - the so-called middle-man, who becomes their human bridge who they will come to rely on to take the expedition from this side of the jungle to the other side - their destination.

At this point in our own learning journey, we continue to understand the breadth of responsibilities of the enterprise architect. More and more, this middle-man's role appears to overlap many of that for the CIO, and even the CTO.  It appears that this is no longer a unique observation, as I come across more articles getting the same feeling -- and just a feeling at this point, in the absence of better articulation.  In my opinion, the difference between a CTO and a CIO is easier to define i.e. a CTO typically develops technology products for its external customers, and the CIO typically develops IT capabilities for its internal customers in the organization.  On the other hand, the roles of the CIO and the CEA are largely overlapped.  I think a CIO managing an IT group in a smaller company, can have the extra bandwidth to handle the EA role, and thus play the CEA role as well. And in a really small company, may wear the two hats with an EA staff of zero.  Obviously for larger companies, the CIO would have a full-plate managing IT operations and development, and in this larger context, the CIO can still wear the CEA hat -- possibly with a small EA staff. 

Now for really large companies, particularly with global operations, a C-level enterprise architect - the CEA role is clearly viable, and whose office, I would think, would be mainly dedicated to promoting communications for business strategy execution, with the primary mission of maintaining optimal stakeholder engagement and senior management support for IT initiatives.  In this setting, the Chief will most likely assume the role of champion for the best practices of Change Management in the organization. When the CEA is recognized as such in the organization, the CIO can actually focus more on successful execution of IT operations, and ultimately the EA role becomes beloved.

So who reports to whom? I think this is a result of a combination of elements, e.g. corporate philosophy, point-in-time organizational needs, and -- as our good professor has hinted in class this week, political positions, strength of leadership, personality and qualities in character. Meaning, it's possible that a CIO and a CEA is at the same level, or the head of EA reports to the CIO, or the CIO possibly reporting to the CEA.  And thus when the EA team's role is clearly defined, and has a strong leadership that deserves C status, the corridors to the so-called C-suite becomes a natural placement.

Okay, that's it for this week. I need to get to snow-removal mode, and I have those ibufropen tablets ready. 

Ian

Here's an interesting set of readings below. 

Note that Adrian gives himself the title "Executive Enterprise Architect" - not a CEA, and not surprising for high-level EA consultants, with more advisory rather than staff functions.

Gregoriu, Adrian. The Fading Role of the CIO. http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ea_matters/2014/04/the-fading-role-of-the-cio.php

Gregoriu, Adrian. (May 28, 2014). The new role of the CIO in the Cloud era.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140528012251-4427837-the-new-role-of-the-cio-in-the-cloud-era

Luisi, James. (Mar 15, 2014). Pragmatic Enterprise Architecture: Strategies to Transform Information Systems in the Era of Big Data. Morgan Kaufmann.