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pvandeginste
Honored Contributor

Summer is upon us, and depending on where you live, with it comes the risk of wildfires. We all inherited from our prehistoric ancestors a natural awe and fear of fire: when controlled and mastered it provides heat, light, security, and power; but if left uncontrolled, fire can cause untold destruction. Over the course of history, we have developed new techniques and technologies to better control and fight fire: from the human chains moving buckets from a water source to the fire, to fire hydrants, and active firefighting features built into our homes and buildings. For most of us however, fighting “fires” is a daily task, in large part due to an environment (business, technological, geo-political, etc.) that changes rapidly and often without much warning. But as mankind learned to evolve in its techniques and resources to control and master fire, what can we, Enterprise Architecture & governance practitioners, do to improve our chance at mastering and controlling “daily fires”?

Here are some ideas and practices that I think could help:

  • Fire hydrants: fire hydrants were a major breakthrough in firefighting. Firefighters no longer needed to rely on the proximity of a body of water or however much water their vehicles could hold: all they needed was to get the resources on-site as fast as possible. One way of cutting down on the time to discover and analyze impacts to your architecture is to establish “placeholders”. Fully documenting the enterprise architecture down to the lowest level of detail can provide the basis for a strong analytical capability, but it takes time and resources to accomplish. However documenting the entire EA at a relatively high-level can help you in conducting a preliminary assessment of the impact of changes or threats to the architecture. It may not give the full answer to the executive’s question, but it can help in narrowing down where to look. At that point you can more quickly send your resources to continue the discovery, documentation, and analysis.
  • Depending on where you live, your firefighters may be professionals, or they may be volunteers.  These volunteer firefighters do what they do because they love their community and want to see it thrive. They know the neighborhoods, the roads, and the people who live there. In a similar way, you can organize your EA & governance resources in “professionals” and “volunteers”. The “professionals” are your core EA & governance team, those whose main job is enterprise architecture and/or governance. By identifying subject matter experts who have good functional understanding of the enterprise and fully embrace the value of EA & governance, you can build your own team of volunteers who can provide your core team with the inside knowledge of their functional area, notify them of any changes, and be a vocal supporter of your EA & governance practice. Keep in mind though, that just as volunteer firefighters need to be appropriately trained and equipped, so do your volunteer “architects”. They also need to be motivated by a sense of purpose. As Smokey Bear puts it: “Only you can prevent a wildfire”.
  • “Where there’s smoke there’s fire” – prevention & early-warning: we have learned the hard way to observe and analyze precursor signs of fire. From having observation posts in fire-prone areas like forests to meteorological analysis to warn people of weather conditions conducive to fire. Integrate your enterprise architecture practice with those other practices in your organization that can help detect the signals before it’s too late. For example, integrating your GRC and EA practices, or having an enterprise architecture representative sit in on the change control board to help identify areas of risk or potential issues ahead of time so they can be properly mitigated. Build your “threat board” and early-warning system into your architecture to prevent “fires” like data breaches or infrastructure failures from spreading like wildfires across your organization.
  • Be the trusted advisor: back in the day, certain insurance companies would have their own firefighters. If there was a fire, they would send their firefighting teams to assess the risk to property they insured. It wasn’t rare to have firefighters stand by and let homes burn down, simply because their employer had no vested interest in saving them. Internal politics are simply an aspect of any organization, no way around it. But staying out of it is critical for your enterprise architecture practice to thrive and maintain credibility with executives, who will call upon you when they need help.
  • “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”.  Humans learned about the benefits and dangers of fire the hard way, by trial and error. Like any other project or program, lessons learned are critical for the success of your enterprise architecture & governance practices. Every year, perform an introspective assessment of your practice’s performance and compare it against your stakeholders’ assessment of your performance. Identify the gaps, and come up with your “firefighting” innovations.

In the end, there will always be fires to put out, but with a strong, integrated enterprise architecture and governance practice, you will be able to help your executives harness the power and potential changes that impact your business (e.g. new technologies, customer expectations, regulations, etc.), rather than stand by helplessly as a wildfire ravages your enterprise…