Hi Everyone,
Yesterday, I got the following question via Twitter from a follower: "Can anyone do Visual Enterprise Architecture, or are some skills required, like graphics, which hardly any architect has?"
This question is coming from someone who wants to know what it takes to become a successful Visual Enterprise Architect.
Is Visual Enterprise Architecture (EA) for Everyone?
To start with the straightforward answer: Yes, Visual Enterprise Architecture can be done by anyone. You DO NOT need any graphics skills. You need not be a gifted cartoonist to be a successful visual enterprise architect. Although a little feeling of withdrawing the core of a problem or solution helps.
What are Essential Skills for Enterprise Architecture?
What you do need is to be curious. It would be best if you were intrigued by how to design an integrated solution using new and old concepts that fulfill many different requirements, some of which might even be contradictory. And next, you must like it to communicate the solution and supervise its realization.
Why is Enterprise Architecture (EA) so important?
Enterprise Architecture is important because businesses increasingly depend on information, data, and technology. So, we need more architects who understand the EA tools, enterprise software, frameworks, concepts, and arguments for architecting the future of our companies.
How does
Visually Architecting the Future of Your Enterprise do that?
In a nutshell, doing visual enterprise architecture comes down to identifying the larger but specialized business & IT concepts that make up the architecture of the enterprise and, with that, bridge the gap between strategy and business change in an organization.
That's all!... But that requires some knowledge of business and IT concepts (techniques, standards, trends, etc...) in general. For instance, you must know about cross-selling and cloud computing to develop a digital architectural (total concept) solution for a brick-and-mortar sales issue.
Do you need to know many Business and IT Concepts?
So the catch in being a successful visual enterprise architect lies in how well you know the possible and correct larger business & IT concepts for a certain strategy or type of enterprise. And for that, some of us need experience, creativity, and experts or specialists in the field (to which work can be delegated). I often try to copy concepts from other sciences, like Nature, to the field of Enterprise Architecture for that extra touch and personal fingerprint in the architectural solution.
How to Bridge the gap between Strategy and Digital Transformation?
If you want to know more about bridging the gap between strategy and business change (or digital transformation) with the correct architecture, you might take a look at the Enterprise Architecture & Performance Framework. That will explain a lot more about doing Visual Enterprise Architecture.
Thank you for reading my blog, and don't forget to check it out again soon!
Mark Paauwe
Some links to Enterprise Architecture resources on Visualizing Architecture are:
- Enterprise Performance Framework