IT organisations are under pressure to develop an effective strategy and to deliver services that meet the objectives of the enterprise. In order to meet these requirements, it is essential that IT management has a thorough understanding of what they have got, where the business is headed, and what the transformation activities are necessary to navigate the changes. An architectural approach can offer a useful framework within which organisations can address the dislocation between the business and IT, as well as helping in meeting statutory and corporate governance requirements.

A number of factors, including increased globalisation, regulatory pressures driving governance and compliance requirements, general security worries, and difficult trading conditions, have all combined to make IT strategy formulation and service delivery problematic. Within IT there is a strong emphasis on technology architectures and individual project management, and less focus on elements such as the enterprise strategy, business processes, and organisational issues – something an architectural approach can help to address.

Enterprise Architecture is an important strategic planning technique that can be used by organisations to communicate and interpret the objectives of the business. An architectural approach provides the essential blueprints for the communication, interpretation, and implementation of value drivers throughout the organisation, and enables the evolution to a service-centric IT environment.

The Master Class will provide an understanding of the relationship between IT strategy, service delivery, and architecture, along with valuable insight into the different aspects of Enterprise Architecture. In addition, how to deploy an Enterprise Architecture and create a practice will be reviewed, along with quantitative measurement of the benefits. Successful Enterprise Architecture programmes require a balance between developing sufficient material to be useful and to demonstrate the value of the approach, and avoiding the dangers of over-analysis. There is no doubt that a ‘model everything’ approach is likely to fail. Establishing a strong framework, process, and standards for architectural development ensures that each iteration further adds to the knowledge base.

For Enterprise Architecture to be effective there has to be complete buy-in across the entire organisation, with an understanding of the allocation of the roles and responsibilities. Whilst the models are important, of equal significance is the communication between IT project teams and other stakeholders. The cultural change that the move to Enterprise Architecture requires should also not be underestimated, nor should the other potential barriers to successful adoption, such as a lack of senior management support and analysis paralysis found in many approaches of this type. Despite the issues surrounding using an architectural approach many organisations have indicated that it is worth persevering with and it is something that all IT managers should be conversant with.