I think it is very important to get the Chief Architect or Director of EA on board first. This needs to be a strong relationship between the funder and supporter of the program – usually the CIO. In some organizations this may root from the business or a strategy planning department, but in any case, the leader needs to come first.

As for the PM role, yes, I agree that the EA leader will have to take on some of that work in the beginning, but as the team grows, some of that work may be shifted amongst the team or potentially an assistant or PM. I really like a strong relationship between the EA leader/Chief and whomever is responsible for Enterprise Portfolio Managment, or IT Asset Management.

A cohesive relationship between the CIO’s office, EA program and PMO will serve the enterprise best.

Sharon C. Evans

Thanks for the positive feedback too! Leo

Therefore, it looks like I might be doing the EA thing solo for a while (maybe two of us if I recruit the IA). By the way, my background is in software engineering and I have been doing some software architecture work.

I am interested to know your experience in approaching EA on your own. Do you have any recommondations for me?

Thanks a bunch! – Josef

All the best, Leo

EA groups are getting more traction and success by breaking free of IT centricity and concentrating on the overlaps between business architecture, information architecture (not data modeling per se, but HOW, WHY, and WHAT information is used within the org, not just atomic data or structures), and, of course, IT architecture and structures.

Sorry if I’m sounding a bit Gartner-esque here guys, but I’ve been noodling the ‘EAs being too IT-centric’ issue lately, and I might get off my duff soon and blog about it….

Some of the prior comments allude to skills a type of person who fits what I just described would have.

For me, the takeaway from Nick’s comment is that you need to look at the secondary skills (in addition to the primary skills for the job function) of your EA team and make sure you strike the right balance. If you have a bunch of great architects, but none of them communicate well, you will struggle. If you have a bunch of great architects, but no one can organize and manage an effort in a more formal manner, you will struggle.

great question.
I think the answer depends on the type of organisation you are in. In some orgs you need political clout to get anywhere (so get a respected senior manager on board), whereas in others you might need innovative generalists with an entrepreneurial streak.
Either way, you need generalists, people who can context-switch and people who aren’t afraid of looking stupid by asking stupid questions (there are no stupid questions!).

I would prioritise social skills and emotional intelligence above domain (especially technical) knowledge; enthusiasm and vision above rigour; pragmatism above idealism; curiosity above all else.

this answer doesn’t really do justice to the question; I too am interested to hear other people’s views.

regards
Martin

Apart from that, I would agree strongly with Jon – an experienced PM (especially a ‘scrounger’ who knows how the game *really* works within the enterprise) is probably the skillset you need the most at the start, and build outward from there. I’d also agree that the permanent EA team should always be small – though might co-opt any number of specialists on a project-by-project basis.

(Looking forward to Nick’s comments on this, too. )

Thanks for the quick response and insights. I was hoping to generate some diverse approaches by posting this, especially after my conversation with Nick Malik. I have been a team of one for 5 years and had to beg, borrow and steal people’s time to make any advances in our EA practice. I will be pinging Nick to get him to write about his suggested team composition.

More to come I am sure!
Leo