What is an Enterprise Architecture?

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is an organizational model; an abstract representation of an Enterprise that aligns strategy, operations and technology to create a roadmap for success. There are many definitions of the word enterprise: in EA, an enterprise is a complex organization that is attempting to undergo change.

Who is an Enterprise Architect?

EA practitioners capture and structure organizational knowledge. They analyze, connect, and integrate relevant information from different sources (both internal and external) to make it useful for decision-making. The Enterprise Architect is an experienced, multi-disciplinary, technology-savvy expert tasked with developing an understanding of all facets of the organization’s structure, data (both structured and unstructured) and information streams. The Architect’s mission is to develop an enterprise-level set of dependency artifacts that integrate relevant organizational and technology attributes which can be used to analyze and inform change.

Why do you need Enterprise Architecture?

Business leaders use many different types of information to make decisions in a dynamic environment. An organization needs an Enterprise Architect to bring together the enterprise knowledge (vested in its people, policies and operations), with knowledge of technology to improve the business and enable key decision makers to effectively steer the organization.

Many organizations do not leverage the full power of the data they already have available. The Enterprise Architect serves as both a systems engineer and knowledge management expert who can leverage this untapped potential to bridge the gap between data and decision-making. An Enterprise Architect is a skilled communicator and analyst who can leverage, extract and develop knowledge for the organization by linking various enterprise facets such as strategy, operations, finance, supply-chain, customer-support, and technology, and communicates the information in a way that’s useable by key decision-makers.

From a Cognitive science foundation, knowledge is of two types: declarative and procedural. Declarative knowledge consists of facts, descriptions or propositions. Procedural knowledge pertains to the knowledge of “how” and is context-specific. It defines the process to use the declarative knowledge in context. It is required to transform declarative knowledge elements into something useful to accomplish the task at-hand. In an Enterprise context, as the declarative knowledge is fragmented across people, technology and strategy, an Enterprise Architecture creates procedural knowledge by bringing clarity through an agreed-upon declarative knowledge-base, and a process by which the entire organization uses the enterprise’s “declarative” knowledge to perform successfully in a dynamic environment. Till date, various Enterprise Frameworks have only attempted to create such a procedure and there exists no standard procedure to bring the organization’s declarative knowledge to bear for organization’s true progress and create value out of an EA.

From a Cognitive science foundation, knowledge is of two types: declarative and procedural. Declarative knowledge consists of facts, descriptions or propositions. Procedural knowledge pertains to the knowledge of “how” and is context-specific. It defines the process to use the declarative knowledge in context. It is required to transform declarative knowledge elements into something useful to accomplish the task at-hand. In an Enterprise context, as the declarative knowledge is fragmented across people, technology and strategy, an Enterprise Architecture creates procedural knowledge by bringing clarity through an agreed-upon declarative knowledge-base, and a process by which the entire organization uses the enterprise’s “declarative” knowledge to perform successfully in a dynamic environment. Till date, various Enterprise Frameworks have only attempted to create such a procedure and there exists no standard procedure to bring the organization’s declarative knowledge to bear for organization’s true progress and create value out of an EA.