Enterprise Architecture Organizational Readiness and Change Management

For a successful enterprise architecture program it is absolutely necessary that you prepare your organization for the long journey. Organizational readiness include not only making sure that everyone is aware about enterprise architecture program, but also making sure that you get the buy-in from all user group, and make necessary changes in the structure of the organization to support the program successfully. The activities include getting commitment from the executive sponsor and having that commitment passed down to the entire organization and involve a two way change, communication and feedback mechanism throughout the life of the program.

Sponsor Commitment

The enterprise architecture program must have full commitment from the executive sponsor who will be acting as the change agent for the business transformation program. The executive sponsor should validate the business goals and benefits with peers and senior executives and should obtain support from key “level two” or business leaders and direct reporting managers as shown in figure below.

Communication

Communication is they key for successful change management. It is important that the right message to the right audience is communicated at the right time. The communication strategy begins by creating communication groups and formulating message contexts, audience and involves activities for communicating to specific level and what information needed to be included to a specific communication group. The communication strategy should also include communication intervals, progress report and status report from all levels back to the executive sponsor(s) for monitoring and fine tuning. An active feedback channel should be set up within all levels to gather and analyze the effect of communication within your organization.

Transition Roles and Responsibilities

Perhaps the most unambiguous of organizational change management is the unknown about changes in future roles and responsibilities. Concerns about “getting the cheese back”, after the move. This step effects primarily at level III, as an enterprise architecture initiative will possibly streamline business processes, create new and introduce new and modern applications that need different level of supporting and owners. A detail responsibility and impact matrix, (sometimes a RACI matrix) needs to be created to analyze and determine whether a role needs new responsibility, accountability, or a new role for the new function. The matrix is also used to determine the transition path and “rolling-in” or “rolling-out” of a particular designation to a new role or organization. The new list of roles and responsibilities matrix is then prioritized for when the new role is taking effect and when the old role terminates. These are then aligned with communication plan and appropriate message should be delivered to the effecting roles to eliminate feeling of uncertainty in the organization. To some degree, you should also plan for individual one-on-one basis interaction.

Transition and Training

Transition and Training exercise will produce detail matrix of obsolete, current and future skill sets. The outcome of this exercise will produce a list that will supplement the roles and responsibility matrix to provide a transition roadmap for skill sets that are going obsolete and those are newly acquired. This activity will be integrated into the enterprise program office and change management office to continue identifying and scoping transition plan and resource requirements. Unless all appropriate users learn and trained how to use new and modern applications, any modernization or business transformation project post roll-out will be at failure of risk of acceptance.

Feedback

Constant feedback is necessary for monitoring the progress and effects of change. Feedback channels are setup along with communication plan. It is important to have creative ways of getting feedback back from end users. Use of social media, anonymous comments, emails, drop boxes, interactive sessions etc should be utilized to reach all levels of users and locations. This also applies to partner, vendors and all your eco channels.

Leadership Center of Excellence

Setting up Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (COE) and Leadership center will assist in building awareness on enterprise architecture, industry and market related development and best practices. The center of excellence will also help organization to understand the need for enterprise architecture and cultivate enterprise architecture governance processes. You could also bring external vendors such as IBM, SAP, Oracle etc or research organizations such as Gartner or Forrester for hosting conferences and awareness camps on new technology, processes and practices.

Sample Enterprise Architecture Organizational Model

A sample enterprise model is based on the assumption that your organizational need can be grouped into seven basic focus areas. Note that this organizational model does not represent your entire business but rather focus on core technology operations. The roles and responsibilities of each focus area are:

  • Executive Strategy
  • Program Management
  • Business Processes
  • Business Governance
  • Business Technology
  • Business Information
  • Change Management
  • Security

Executive Strategy: Represents the highest executive in charge of an IT organization. Typically, this would be CIO or DCIO level and its administrative roles under immediate supervisory. This role is fully responsible for the providing executive direction, mission, vision, business goals, operations and its growth.

Business Information: Subject Matter Expert in Master Data Management and Business Intelligence capability. Lead development of business intelligence and information strategy, design and architecture to establish an Enterprise Information Management framework. Collaborate with other focus area groups to implement standards, architecture, security, change management and operational processes.

Business Processes: Subject Matter Expert in Business Process Modeling and Business Process Management. Lead design and modeling of new business processes across entire business program needs. Conduct business analysis, gap, fit and re-usability analysis on existing and new processes. Collaborate with other focus area groups to implement standards, architecture, security, change management and operational processes.

Business Governance: Subject Matter Expert in establishing Organizational Governance and Process Modeling. Lead and identify new strategic initiatives, business benefits and changes. Understand re-usability to particular process and recommends best practices, applies industry and market knowledge for process improvement. Advocate architecture, security, design and development guidelines and methodologies and make sure that enterprise processes follows them. Collaborate with other focus area groups to implement standards, architecture, security, change management and operational processes.

Business Technology: Subject Matter Expert in technology systems and software implementation and operations. Lead development, implementation and operations of technology, hardware and software. Develop and provide shared service support for all business programs as agreed upon the SLA. Collaborate with other focus area groups to implement standards, information management, architecture, security, change management and operational processes.

Security: Subject Matter Expert in enterprise security. Develop and provide security models for all focus area and business programs. Provide best practices and act as security advisory. Collaborate with other focus area groups to implement standards, information management, architecture, change management and operational processes.

Change Management: Subject Matter Expert in Organizational Change Management and Training Strategy Development. Develop and analyze organization training needs, assist in organizational change management, readiness and communication. Provide best practices and act as change board advisory. Collaborate with other focus area groups to implement standards, information management, architecture, change management and operational processes.

Program Management: Subject Matter Expert in Project Management Methodologies, Processes and Principles. Develop project repository, document project scope, work, manage projects, evaluate for redundancy and dependency, provide status and performance reports and prioritize projects. Collaborate with other focus area groups to implement standards, information management, architecture, change management and operational processes.

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