There are many definitions of Enterprise Architecture, but the one that stands close to our hearts says that the EA is a decision-making framework. As simple as that!
We could end this post right here, but let us emphasize a couple of points first.
EA seems overly complicated to many of its practitioners and stakeholders due to the vagueness of its meaning, proprietary knowledge, and old-fashioned approaches.
Vagueness exists because every definition of the subject talks about roadmap, strategy, technology, and operations, but these elements are entirely different from one company to another. Knowledge is proprietary because numerous frameworks exist that prescribe lengthy, specialized EA approaches. Still, it is a less-known fact that the EA does not come with anything predefined as such. And finally, disciplines used today are old-fashioned because they do not fit in many modern, large-scale agile organizations where the trend is to decentralize the decision-making as opposed to the centralized EA approach.
We asked ourselves - does it have to be so hard? The answer is a definite NO. After all, if you read the points mentioned above, you can see that each of them is solvable.
The need for Enterprise Architecture is more relevant today than ever. Although large-scale agile frameworks have come to help, they only govern processes, while the actual digital transformation needs a mechanism such as EA. In other words, times have changed, and now it is EA's turn to do so. Enterprise Architecture craves practicality, simplicity, and effectiveness.
We can remove vagueness by evangelizing the simplest definition of Enterprise Architecture. Yes, EA can be simple, accessible for everybody, and not only for a few people in each organization. We believe that proprietary knowledge is not necessary to succeed with EA; you only need to know the basics that most of us already do. And finally, modernized approaches become possible as we can start over and rethink how we document and analyze existing structures and plan or execute effective digital transformation changes.
We are enthusiastic about the possibilities described above because we are building Archipeg - a modern, cloud-based digital Enterprise Architecture Software (SaaS). We want to do it right because we are solving everybody's problems.
You can start your digital transfrmation journey with 30-day free trial and trasnparent prices.